Oral Answers to Questions

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

The Secretary of State was asked—

BSE

Tam Dalyell: What representations she has received from Professor Alan Ebringer of King's college London on BSE and related issues.

Margaret Beckett: I received a report on the research work conducted by Professor Ebringer in August 2001.

Tam Dalyell: In view of Professor Ebringer's report that BSE is probably an auto-immune disease caused by a soil bacterium, which therefore cannot be passed on by meat consumption, does the Department propose to support further research on developing an ante-mortem test to avoid unnecessary cattle culling and thereby save large sums of taxpayers' money? May we hope that the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee has no vested interests of the mind in this controversy? The consequences are enormous if Professor Ebringer is right. May we have the assurance that the Department will consider carefully any work from the university of Chicago, a distinguished peer group that may pass judgment on Professor Ebringer's report?

Margaret Beckett: As my hon. Friend knows very well, Professor Ebringer's theory is not universally supported, although it is very interesting. My Department does indeed keep an open mind on new theories on BSE. Where Professor Ebringer's work includes development of a diagnostic test, we are providing funding for him to test his theories more rigorously. My hon. Friend asked about SEAC having a vested interest. I am not aware of any such interest, but he may like to know that the SEAC chairman has, I believe, written to Professor Ebringer inviting him to attend a meeting of the committee.

Nicholas Soames: Does the right hon. Lady agree that it would be a great pity if Professor Ebringer's team has to be dissolved because the grant that runs out in December is not renewed? As the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) rightly said, that extremely important but controversial work should be considered. Is she aware that there is grave concern that any research with which DEFRA is not automatically happy is quietly shunted into a siding? Does she agree that that work is important and should continue to be funded?

Margaret Beckett: Of course I accept that it is important, and, as the hon. Gentleman said, my Department is funding it. I do not think it fair to say that there is no interest in it. If there were no interest in alternative theories, we would not be funding work now. He will also know that Professor Horn's team, for example, which earlier this year investigated the origin of BSE, was unable to agree with Professor Ebringer's theory. We shall keep the funding issue under review. Although I have no current plans to extend that funding, there is no question of the research being in any way suppressed; it is supported.

Paul Tyler: I at least welcome the fact that the Department is funding further rigorous research into Professor Ebringer's theory, but will the right hon. Lady address in particular the connection between Professor Ebringer's work and the conclusion of the Phillips inquiry that there may well be a connection between the spread of BSE—not the origin of the disease—and the use of organophosphate warble fly dressings in the 1980s? As there seems to be a direct connection, is further research being done to establish whether the Phillips inquiry was correct in that conclusion?

Margaret Beckett: As the hon. Gentleman knows, a great deal of research is being conducted. Although there is almost a plethora of theories, up to now there has been no clear and simple explanation that everyone has accepted, other than that which is familiar to all hon. Members about the possibility of animal feed being the cause. My Department, and SEAC advising it, keep all those different ideas under review and continue to support a range of research into such issues.

Dennis Skinner: Is it the Government's and the Department's policy to pay out grants to everyone who has a controversial idea? I can think of a thousand and one controversial ideas. Where does the policy begin and where does it end? If this fellow gets a grant for doing controversial work, should that not apply to a lot of others who would like to take part in the exercise? It sounds like a DEFRA new deal.

Margaret Beckett: I do not think that it is quite that. If I may remind the House, any research funding that my Department undertakes is provided on the basis of thorough scientific evaluation and advice, but I take my hon. Friend's point—many people are investigating different theories. When there is a possibility of scientific validity, we try to avoid squeezing out theories that are initially controversial and new, which is what my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mrs Dalyell) expressed concern about. We try to ensure that we investigate the right range of potential answers. I am nevertheless grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) for pointing out that we cannot do absolutely everything.

Peter Ainsworth: The right hon. Lady might have told the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) that Professor Ebringer heads up a world-class laboratory that deserves support and his findings deserve to be taken very seriously indeed. Do not those findings in relation to BSE underline yet again the disturbing confusion in the scientific world over those vital matters of food safety and health?
	I sympathise with the right hon. Lady. It is extremely difficult to base far-reaching Government policy on science when science appears to shift like sand, but does she accept that Professor Ebringer's evidence only emphasises the need to take account of scientific opinion beyond her own advisers at SEAC, particularly bearing in mind the fact that scientists show a natural reluctance to alter their opinions once they have reached a decision and published it?

Margaret Beckett: We all understand that, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his understanding, but perhaps he is being a little unfair in saying that there is disturbing confusion in the scientific world. As he is well aware, we are talking about people who operate at the cutting edge of science.
	The hon. Gentleman is entirely right about Professor Ebringer, but many of those engaged in this range of work, some of whom have different ideas, also work in world-class research institutes, as one would expect of people who are trying to establish a greater scientific consensus on an issue that is so very difficult and that is at the cutting edge of science. We very much take and heed the advice of SEAC, but we also try to keep an open mind, as SEAC itself does, and try not to stifle an interesting new theory, wherever it may come from.

Kyoto Protocol

Tom Brake: What role her Department played in the international round of climate change negotiations in Marrakech (COP7); and when she expects the UK Government to ratify the Kyoto protocol.

Margaret Beckett: UK Ministers and officials and experts played a leading role in the negotiations in Marrakech. We believe that the agreement reached should pave the way for ratification and entry into force of the Kyoto protocol. The UK intends to ratify, along with our EU partners, in time to allow entry into force before the world summit on sustainable development next September.

Tom Brake: I thank the Secretary of State for her response and I welcome the role that the UK has played so far, although it is worth remembering that the figure for reduction is 5.2 per cent. on average, or 2 per cent. according to some environmental groups. That is some way off the 60 per cent. reduction in carbon dioxide emissions required in the longer term.
	The Secretary of State knows that the UK and the US are standing shoulder to shoulder in respect of Afghanistan. What progress are the Government making to ensure that the UK and the US stand shoulder to shoulder on this issue, which is also of international importance?

Margaret Beckett: First, the figures that the hon. Gentleman quotes are based on an approach of "business as usual plus about 15", so the contribution to tackling the issue is more substantial than is sometimes acknowledged. However, I fully accept, as does everyone engaged in the talks in Bonn and Marrakech, that this is very much a first step on the road. Not only is it a substantial step in itself, but for the very first time we have an international environmental agreement with detailed rules and mechanisms allowing not just implementation but monitoring of that implementation.
	On the position of the United States, I had discussions with the US Minister in Marrakech and I understand that substantial work is continuing in the United States. The US Government recognise the importance of climate change and the need to address that issue. My impression is that the United States will work on and hopefully produce proposals as to how it may act domestically. Obviously we do not yet have a time scale for that, but it is clear that substantial work is being undertaken, and that in itself is welcome.

Joan Ruddock: I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend on the progress that has been made. Does she agree that, to meet the much higher targets that the United Kingdom Government have set themselves, it is necessary to move more quickly towards the use of maximum energy efficiency and renewables? In that context, will she commit to using the powers under the Utilities Act 2000 to introduce an obligation on suppliers in respect of combined heat and power similar to that for renewables?

Margaret Beckett: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her remarks and for the great interest that she takes in the matter. The issue that she raises is under consideration, and we recognise the great importance of the contribution of CHP. It is intended to issue a consultation paper, perhaps towards the turn of the year, because the Government recognise and want to strengthen the position of CHP.

John Horam: In relation to the international negotiations on Kyoto, does the Deputy Prime Minister still have responsibilities, as appeared to be envisaged when the Secretary of State's responsibilities were originally set out, or is she alone taking the lead?

Margaret Beckett: In this Government we work together in pursuing our objectives. I was the lead negotiator in Marrakech and in Bonn, and we were fortunate to secure agreement. However, I was delighted to be able to engage my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister in making the international contacts outside the specific arena of Marrakech that helped us to reach that agreement.

David Chaytor: Given the recent significant fall in the price of crude oil and given that the transport sector contributes more than 20 per cent. to total greenhouse gas emissions in the United Kingdom, has my right hon. Friend considered the fact that our attempts to achieve our targets might be undermined by increased petrol consumption and increased greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector? Has she considered any corrective mechanisms that may be necessary to prevent that?

Margaret Beckett: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. We keep all those issues under review and a lot of interesting work is being conducted on the contributions made by different sectors. It is important to do as much as we reasonably and proportionately can, acting on all those different levers, but a great deal of work is being undertaken to find out what has the greatest impact. Some recent work suggests that energy efficiency represents one of the most effective initiatives that we could take in the United Kingdom to reduce our contribution to global warming.

Peter Ainsworth: The right hon. Lady is keen to take credit for the extremely welcome progress made on achieving international agreement on climate change. No doubt the Deputy Prime Minister will be delighted to hear what she said about his role in the matter, but we all know that the Minister for the Environment really deserves any accolades that are on offer.
	Will the Secretary of State move to ratify the Kyoto agreement as soon as possible? Will she give us a date by which she envisages that happening? On the United Kingdom's efforts to combat climate change, does she agree that the so-called climate change levy is set to hit manufacturing industry with a £200 million bill that it can ill afford? In any case, will she confirm that 70 per cent. of carbon dioxide emissions do not come from industry and that the levy is nothing more than another stealth tax that will damage competitiveness while contributing virtually nothing to saving the planet?

Margaret Beckett: I can honestly say that it has never been my practice throughout my political life to try to take credit for something in which I have not played a role. While I am happy to echo the hon. Gentleman's tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment, the hon. Gentleman has overlooked one matter, because it has not yet been reported in the House. My right hon. Friend, along with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, made a considerable contribution to reaching an excellent agreement in Doha recently.
	This Government are working extremely well together and, although I would not say so if the hon. Gentleman had not been slightly less than charitable, we have been substantially more successful in those international negotiations than were the Government whom he supported. As for moving to ratification, I cannot give him more of a time scale than that we intend to ratify before the Johannesburg summit.
	I hope that the hon. Gentleman and the House are also aware that the Russian delegation made positive noises and indications and that the Japanese Government have announced that they will put ratification procedures to the Diet and hope to ratify Kyoto by June. They think that a reasonable parliamentary timetable. It appears that we are making substantial progress towards ratification and entry into force, and that is excellent.
	On the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the climate change levy, I am mindful that it is not popular with British business and that areas of manufacturing have expressed concern at its effect. I remind him that it is a mechanism for funding the work of the Carbon Trust. I do not know how much opportunity he has had to examine its work, as he has held his responsibilities for only a short time, but it is interesting and encouraging, and funded directly by the climate change levy.

Flooding (Cambridgeshire)

Andrew Lansley: If she will meet the chairman of the Environment Agency to discuss recent flooding in Cambridgeshire; and if she will make a statement.

Elliot Morley: I express the Government's sympathy for all those affected by the recent flooding in Cambridgeshire and elsewhere. I have received a report from the Environment Agency on the flooding, which followed exceptional rainfall in that area. The agency is undertaking follow-up investigations into the sources of the flooding. If those reveal additional flood defence needs, I will consider them with the agency's chairman, with whom I have regular meetings.

Andrew Lansley: I thank the Minister for his reply and his remarks on those affected by the flooding. He knows that more than a dozen villages in my constituency alone were flooded, resulting in serious damage to properties. Although the rainfall was exceptional, the floods highlight serious problems with where properties have been built and the inadequacy of flood defences.
	When the Minister discusses those matters with the chairman of the Environment Agency, will he also consider the criteria that his Department applies to projects undertaken by the agency? They lead people in rural areas to feel that, because they live in less densely populated areas where there is less risk to the value of properties affected by any flood, they are sometimes abandoned in circumstances in which those in urban areas would be protected.

Elliot Morley: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. We have introduced a point-scoring system for flood defences to identify priorities. The system is transparent and people can see how the decisions have been made, but complex issues are involved. For example, the flooding at about three quarters of the affected properties in his constituency was caused by problems with drains, small ditches and non-main rivers, which are not the responsibility of the Environment Agency.
	The hon. Gentleman may be aware that we recently commissioned a report by the Institution of Civil Engineers to address the whole issue of drainage and non-main rivers, and we shall consider it carefully in drawing up policy.

David Drew: My hon. Friend will be aware that the problems in Cambridgeshire are widely felt. Will he engineer a meeting between the Environment Agency and the Local Government Association so that individual local authorities may be made more aware of the new planning policy guidance on building in flood plains, enabling them to avoid doing so?

Elliot Morley: My hon. Friend makes an important point. I regularly meet the LGA and the central local partnership, and we discuss those issues. As he will be aware, the Government recently improved PPG25, which gives new guidance to planners on flood-plain development and the need to ensure that proper mitigation measures are taken to protect new and existing communities and, in some cases, to turn down applications.

Malcolm Bruce: The Minister will acknowledge that the people of Cambridgeshire were clearly dismayed to be victims of flooding yet again. Interestingly, October was the warmest on record and, in Cambridgeshire, the wettest. That is surely practical evidence of the effects of climate change. I understand that there were practical problems, such as the supply of sandbags running out at a critical time, but that raises an issue of resources and co-ordination.
	On the "Today" programme, the Minister acknowledged the Institution of Civil Engineers report, which says that more resources are needed to deal with flood defences and prevention. It also recommends a national agency to co-ordinate flood prevention measures. What will the Government do to implement those recommendations and to ensure that we have proper measures to protect against flooding? How will they make planning guidelines consistent with not developing in areas where development would aggravate flooding problems?

Elliot Morley: The ICE report was very helpful, which is why I commissioned it and other independent reports to help to reduce the risk of flooding anywhere in the country. The provision of sandbags and the roles of the local authorities and the Environment Agency are certainly issues, and they are being considered because we need strategies and advance planning so that any flooding is met by a smooth and seamless response. The Government cannot guarantee that floods will not happen, but we can reduce risk. That involves additional spending, which is why we have substantially increased spending over the past two years.

James Paice: The Minister says that much of the recent problem was caused by the small rivers and was therefore not the responsibility of the Environment Agency. He is right, because it was due to inadequate maintenance of existing flood prevention and drainage systems, but, as he began to imply, the problem is buck passing, which affects many villages in my part of Cambridgeshire.
	I have already found that the Environment Agency, the local district councils, the internal drainage boards and the water authorities are all saying, "It's not me, guv. It's somebody else's responsibility." Will the Minister use his authority to bring those organisations together? For the ordinary person whose house has been flooded, it does not matter whose responsibility it is as long as something is done to resolve the problem. The important point is that all the authorities should work together instead of trying to pass the buck.

Elliot Morley: The short answer is yes. I did not want to pass the buck. A report that we commissioned on the funding sources of flood defence and the institutional arrangements will be published shortly. It will address the issue of non-main rivers. The present situation is that non-main rivers and ditches are the responsibility of landowners in some cases. In others, local authorities have permissive powers. We are not ignoring the existence of those problems. Indeed, we are trying to address them, as the hon. Gentleman will see when the report is published.

Jonathan Sayeed: The floods in Cambridgeshire will be repeated throughout inland Britain this winter, because underground aquifers are full, the land is saturated and the water table is high. If it rains as it did last year, the one certainty is that even more homes and businesses will be inundated than were last year. Those inland floods meant misery for tens of thousands of people and cost them more than £1 billion, as the Minister knows.
	The Government's reaction has been too muddled, too little and too late. Will the Minister confirm that building continues on essential flood plains and that plans for massive development on water-absorbing greenfield sites will make a thoroughly bad situation worse? Have the Environment Agency and the ICE told the Government that much more needs to be done and spent? What reassurances can he give that, if it rains as it did last year, what has been done this year will mean that fewer families will face the squalor and distress that so many faced last winter?

Elliot Morley: Instead of saying that one cannot build on a greenfield site at any time, under any circumstances, we need a balance and some common sense. There have been demands for more funding, and we have met those demands. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the independent reports that we commissioned point out that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when there was a long drought, inadequate investment was made in flood defences.

Bee Diseases

Christopher Chope: If she will make a statement about measures to prevent the spread of bee diseases.

Alun Michael: The Department takes very seriously the threat to honeybees from pests and diseases and funds a range of measures to protect bee health, costing around £1.3 million annually. Under those measures, the National Bee Unit, part of the Central Science Laboratory, provides a free diagnostic and inspection service to the beekeeping sector as well as training and education to help beekeepers become more self-reliant through improved bee husbandry.

Christopher Chope: I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he agree that beekeepers are the unsung heroes of British farming, because they operate without subsidy and in a spirit of enterprise, like the bees they look after? Will he acknowledge the important role played by the beekeepers' insurance company in the fight against foulbrood, and will he acknowledge that that company, which has a premium income of less than £20,000 a year, is being severely crippled by Government regulation and red tape? Will he instruct Departments to let that company operate without the burden of the regulatory drones of Government?

Alun Michael: The hon. Gentleman has clearly been working for a fortnight on that supplementary question, but I am not sure that it qualifies for an award for humour. I am happy to pay tribute to those who work in the beekeeping industry. It should be acknowledged—and the hon. Gentleman might be generous enough to do so himself—that the Government do a great deal to support the industry. For instance, we assist the sector in dealing with health issues—varroa is a particular challenge—through programmes that cost about £1.6 million in 2001-02. The Government recognise and support the industry.

Foot and Mouth

Henry Bellingham: When she next plans to meet representatives of the National Farmers Union to discuss the foot and mouth outbreak; and if she will make a statement.

Margaret Beckett: I met the president of the National Farmers Union to discuss the foot and mouth outbreak on 30 October. Members of my ministerial team and departmental officials keep the NFU fully informed of developments at regular stakeholder meetings, which cover a wide range of foot and mouth disease related issues.

Henry Bellingham: Is the Secretary of State aware that, as well as the devastation caused by foot and mouth in the areas directly affected by the disease, there has also been substantial damage to ancillary businesses in places such as Norfolk? For example, Far Pavilions is a company that hires out tents and marquees in west Norfolk. It has faced crippling losses as a direct consequence of the epidemic. Will she meet representatives of businesses such as that to discuss claims for compensation?
	Finally, has not the time come for the Secretary of State to face up to the huge anger in the countryside and order a full and comprehensive public inquiry?

Margaret Beckett: First, we are aware of the many ancillary businesses damaged by the consequences of the foot and mouth outbreak. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that no Government have ever felt able to say that they could deal with and compensate all those affected by a range of public events. This matter is no different, although I can tell him that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Rural Affairs has continued to hold meetings with interested parties. For example, alongside the meetings that have been held generally with stakeholders in the wider farming community, other meetings have been held with the wider rural stakeholders. We are very conscious of the problems and have sought to do what we can to help to ease the difficulties experienced by people in other businesses. However, the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that we have not been able to alleviate all those problems. The most important contribution that could have been made was to try to bring the epidemic to an end so that ordinary business could resume. Nothing that the Government could do could replace that contribution.

Derek Wyatt: We had foot and mouth in my constituency, which has the largest English cattle ranch and the largest sheep farm in the country. My farmers want to know what the future of farming will be. In that context, will my right hon. Friend remind the House about where we are in discussions about the future of the new common agricultural policy?

Margaret Beckett: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as his question enables me to respond to the second half of the question from the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham). I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for omitting to do so earlier.
	The inquiry process set in train by the Government has three strands, one of which is the work of the commission looking at the future of food and farming. I hope and expect that that commission will be able to report around the end of the year. Obviously, that will be an important contribution to what my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) will know is a widespread debate. He will know too that the Government have pressed—as did our predecessors, although less successfully—for CAP reform. I believe that the agreement reached in Doha will be a substantial stimulus to that process.
	However, I can tell the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk that the Government strongly believe that there is a great deal to be said for holding independently run inquiries that disaggregate the different issues arising from foot and mouth disease. Such an inquiry will report much more speedily and at much less cost than a full tribunal of public inquiry.

Gregory Barker: Given the green light for the resumption of foxhunting in the veterinary risk assessment published this morning, will the Secretary of State join me in acknowledging the invaluable role played by hunt professionals in tackling some of the worst aspects of foot and mouth disease? Will she say for how long the proposed licensing regime will be imposed? Will it be scrapped when the country is deemed to be free of foot and mouth? Finally, will she ensure that the same restrictions are imposed on the dangerous and irresponsible activities of hunt saboteurs?

Margaret Beckett: I remind the hon. Gentleman that what was published this morning was a consultation paper. It is important that people understand that a process of consultation studying aspects of this issue will be held over the next two to three weeks. Also, I take this opportunity to stress that the picture that emerges following the veterinary advice is mixed. Subject to the outcome of the consultation, the Government propose to lift restrictions on falconry, and we shall give greater freedom to operate, for instance, to small teams working to catch vermin in specific farm areas.
	However, when people think of conventional hunting they think of people riding horses, and so on. There are different regimes for such hunting in different parts of the country, depending on disease status. That is the veterinary advice and we shall follow it, as we have followed such advice throughout the outbreak.
	The hon. Gentleman called for restraint among hunt saboteurs. The Government call on everyone connected with hunting—those who engage in it or who follow it, either in support or opposition—to show restraint and to obey the restrictions that are in place. I do not think that anyone would be forgiven if foot and mouth cases started to appear again as a result of our adoption of the veterinary advice.

David Taylor: It is pleasing to hear of the warmth of the relations between the Government and Mr. Ben Gill of the National Farmers Union, but does my right hon. Friend agree that individual local NFU members have been very poorly served by their national leadership? Will she take those local members into the circle of people whom she consults? Will she discuss with them the view that they hold—and which I share—that the contiguous culling policy has been costly, cruel and crass?

Margaret Beckett: The Department seeks to have constructive relationships with all our stakeholders, and the NFU is not exceptional or singled out in that respect. It is not for me to enter into disputes between any membership organisation and its national leadership.
	I am aware that the contiguous cull was a policy of some considerable controversy. However, if my hon. Friend considers the course of the outbreak in the Brecon Beacons, he will find that, because of a perfectly understandable wish not to kill unnecessarily, the procedure included testing before killing. That testing showed that at every stage the disease was running ahead of those tackling it, until the contiguous cull was extended. There is complete agreement between those who dealt with the problem in the Brecon Beacons and the Department that the contiguous cull brought the disease under control. I understand that the policy is controversial, but no one has yet produced a better alternative.

Ann Winterton: Will the Government consider paying a national supplement to the sheep annual premium? Our recent inability to export and the highest European market prices on record have meant that the premium has been calculated at the low level of less than £7, instead of around £17. Will the Secretary of State assure the House that the livestock welfare disposal scheme will continue into 2002 and as long as it is needed while animal welfare problems persist as a result of the foot and mouth epidemic?

Margaret Beckett: We keep all those issues under review. The hon. Lady invites me to come to conclusions here and now, and to announce them. I am not prepared to do that. Of course, the Government are mindful of how the terrible problems caused by foot and mouth impacted on the farming community in a variety of ways. However, as she acknowledged, the question of the sheep premium is not related to that alone. We are mindful of the concerns and needs of the farming industry, and the Government do what they can to address them.

Landfill Sites

Judy Mallaber: What her policy is on the siting of landfill sites.

Michael Meacher: Any new landfill site must comply with the location requirements of the EC landfill directive. It must also be in accordance with the development plan for the area unless material considerations indicate otherwise.

Judy Mallaber: A waste recycling group has submitted an application to develop a landfill site for household waste at Marehay, Ripley, in my constituency, claiming that it is the only possible new site in Derbyshire for Derbyshire's waste. There are 194 houses within 250 m of the site, and a new 300-home housing development is next to that. Does my right hon. Friend find it acceptable for waste to be dumped so close to people's homes, particularly when the stream of waste vehicles will have to go along unsuitable roads to the site, past a school and a major local tourist attraction, the Denby pottery visitors centre?

Michael Meacher: I understand the concern that many local populations have about the siting of new landfill sites. Any landfill site requires planning permission from the local planning authority. There must be a full opportunity for local people to express their views and to have those taken into account. There must be a waste management licence or pollution prevention control permit provided by the Environment Agency. In this case, I would expect that the application for authorisation would be published and that there would be public meetings in the surrounding area to give people an opportunity to comment. Also, I would expect that any draft authorisations would be subject to consultation. We are concerned about the health implications of landfill sites nearby and the small areas health statistical unit has been looking at the health impacts near landfill sites. We have just commissioned three further pieces of research to examine that relationship more closely.

Sue Doughty: I support the move away from landfill sites, but we are faced with a large number of proposals for incineration. What plans does the Minister have to put in place a moratorium on all these proposals to allow other activities such as waste minimisation and waste reduction to take place, and to ensure that incineration takes third place in the waste cycle?

Michael Meacher: The Government published their waste management strategy in the middle of last year and we have made it clear that we have a hierarchy, in which the first priority—as the hon. Lady said—is waste minimisation. The best thing is not to create waste in the first place. The second priority is recycling, reuse and recovery of any waste that is created. Only then will we consider incineration or landfill. The landfill directive, which becomes operational in July next year, will require a massive switch away from landfill to alternative forms of disposal. The Government have made it absolutely clear—with statutory targets for local authorities, a considerable increase in funding for local authorities and the waste resources action programme to provide markets for recyclers—that our chosen preference is unquestionably recycling.

Phyllis Starkey: In connection with the research that the Department is undertaking on the possible health risks associated with landfill, could I ask my right hon. Friend how that research will distinguish between the potential risks that exist in the sites and are associated with the industrial activity that often took place before the site was used for landfill and the effect of landfill itself? Is he aware of the local health survey that is being undertaken around the landfill site in my constituency? Could that information be fed into the general research that is going on? How soon does he think it will be before we get the results of the research that he is commissioning?

Michael Meacher: The small areas health statistical unit has investigated the matter and has found a slightly increased statistical risk of birth defects in babies born to women living within 2 km of landfill sites. This is worrying. However, let me make it absolutely clear that this type of study does not and cannot prove causation. In other words, as my hon. Friend has indicated, there may well be other factors that can explain that association. That is why we have commissioned three further pieces of research. They will report as quickly as they can within the next couple of years so that we can see just what role, if any, landfill sites play in the results that we have found.

Keith Simpson: Like other hon. Members, I think that the Minister is due for promotion to the shadow Cabinet. [Interruption.] Wait for the punchline. I think that he is due for promotion to the shadow Cabinet before the real Cabinet because there is a bijou problemette in promoting him. The Minister has made a lot of the Government's policy on landfill sites, with the important claim that there should be recycling. Will he explain how, at present, Britain recycles only 6 per cent. of our household waste, compared with 24 per cent. in the United States, 18 per cent. in Germany, 28 per cent. in the Netherlands and 42 per cent. in Switzerland? He hopes that 45 per cent. of our household waste will be recovered by 2010. Many of us think that that is an ambitious target. I understand that recoverable household waste will include incineration. We understand that the Government are considering an additional 165 incinerators. If he is not to go ahead with any more landfill sites, could he explain whether he has yet decided where those 165 incinerators are to be placed?

Michael Meacher: The hon. Gentleman is not quite right with his figures. He said that only 6 per cent. of household waste in this country is recycled. That was the figure in 1997, at the end of 18 years of Conservative government. The figure is nearly twice that level now. We expect that, within the next five years, it will be doubled again. Once the momentum in the increase in recycling has been established—through the setting down of statutory targets, the provision of adequate finance and the increased markets for recycling through the WRAP organisation that we have set up—I believe that we can meet these ambitious targets.
	On incinerators, let me make it absolutely clear—I hope for the final time—that the Government do not have any figure in their back pocket about the number of incinerators that might be needed. I have said repeatedly that there are 11 incinerators operating in the UK at present. If we can achieve the requirements under the landfill directive without any increase in incineration at all, I would be delighted. However, I believe that it will be necessary to have some small increase in incineration if we are to achieve those targets. But we insist that this should be small-scale, and preferably in conjunction with combined heat and power.

Joan Walley: Unusually, I agree with the shadow spokesman, the hon. Member for Mid–Norfolk (Mr. Simpson), who suggested that my right hon. Friend the Minister should be in the Cabinet, as that would enable us to put the environment at the heart of Government.
	In respect of landfill sites, my right hon. Friend is right to emphasise the importance of planning decisions. Can he give a progress report on the work that he has been able to do with the Environment Agency to ensure that golf courses are not using loopholes in planning legislation inadvertently to set up landfill sites when developing golf courses? In my constituency, at Bagnall and Goldenhill, we have real fears that we will end up with waste disposal sites when what we have at the moment are golf courses.

Michael Meacher: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her generous remarks, but I recall that when Mr. Nigel Lawson's position was described as "unassailable", he was gone three weeks later. I wonder whether calls for promotion are not a premonition of being sacked.
	On the point made by my hon. Friend, there is a serious issue about exemption from waste management licensing. There is no doubt that many sites currently in use were never intended to be used and are thus not covered by existing legislation. We have undertaken a stringent review of the criteria whereby exemption from waste management licensing can be secured, and I hope to make a statement on that shortly.

Veterinary Medicines

James Gray: If she will make a statement on the regulatory framework for prescribing veterinary medicines.

Elliot Morley: The over-30-months scheme was started in England on 30 July—[Interruption.]

James Gray: That is the wrong answer.

Elliot Morley: I am sorry.
	The regulatory framework for prescribing veterinary medicines is set out in section 58 of the Medicines Act 1968.

James Gray: I am grateful to the Minister for giving me the correct answer—albeit belatedly. He will no doubt be aware of article 67 of the EU review 2001, which would mean that such things as worming powders and salt licks would be issued only under veterinary prescription and not by saddlers or agricultural merchants as they are at present. Does he agree that that would have a devastating effect on saddlers and agricultural merchants; it would have a damaging effect on animal welfare because, for example, people would be reluctant to buy wormers; it would endanger the 3,200 people who are currently qualified to issue those medicines without being vets; and it would have an appalling effect on the countryside in general? Will he bring the strongest representations to bear on the European Commission and the European Parliament to ensure that this does not happen?

Elliot Morley: I assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall certainly raise the matter with the Commission. There needs to be common sense in the application of such regulations. Of course, there are serious issues about veterinary medicines and food animals, and about animal welfare. In relation to animals such as horses, there are a range of medicines and there needs to be some flexibility. Discussions will be held, probably for about two to three years, during which we shall try to resolve these issues.

Flood Prevention

Gareth Thomas: If she will make a statement on steps taken to co-ordinate flood prevention.

Elliot Morley: The Environment Agency has a general supervisory responsibility for all matters relating to flood defence in England and Wales. The agency has been working with the other operating authorities in developing arrangements for inspecting defences and watercourses, receiving reports and assessing flood risk. We have been reviewing the present arrangements for funding flood and coastal defence as part of that, and we will consider whether the institutional arrangements are fit for the purpose.

Gareth Thomas: I am grateful for that response. On the subject of insurance against flooding, I am sure that the Minister will be aware that many householders are now finding it difficult to obtain insurance cover. Does he think that the Government have a role—and if so, what role—in ensuring that the insurance industry, which is so keen to collect premiums from people in good times, provides affordable cover, save in exceptional circumstances?

Elliot Morley: I agree with my hon. Friend. The Government are regularly in touch with the Association of British Insurers, and we have held several meetings recently to discuss those points. Insurance companies are of course in the business of managing risk, while the Government are in the business of reducing risk for people in relation to the threat from floods. The substantial sums that we are putting in and the substantial programmes that we have in place are reducing those risks, and we expect the insurance companies to respond accordingly.

Elfyn Llwyd: The flood problems in Wales are far more than a bijou problemette; they are serious and subject to repetition. Has the hon. Gentleman held discussions with officials of the National Assembly for Wales? The Welsh Local Government Association has estimated that it will cost about £50 million of new money to set up a co-ordinated flood defence strategy in Wales. What input has the hon. Gentleman made in that matter?

Elliot Morley: We meet regularly with our colleagues from the Welsh Assembly. Of course, their input in long-term strategy is most important and we take their views into consideration.

Michael Foster: One of the barriers in setting up flood defence mechanisms seems to be the economic test to which they are subject. Will my hon. Friend impress on the Treasury the need to change the economic test so that, when it is used to assess value for money for flood defence schemes, it includes social costs, impact on health, and business and commercial losses?

Elliot Morley: We are currently reviewing the way that we apply the points score on the very issues raised by my hon. Friend. Of course, issues such as the effect on health can be difficult to quantify, but we accept that that is a perfectly legitimate consideration to take into account, and we are examining how that could be done in the future review of assessments.

Pig Farming

David Heath: What assessment she has made of the profitability of the pig sector.

Elliot Morley: The UK pig industry is going through a difficult time, partly as a result of the foot and mouth disease outbreak but also because of slack demand and plentiful supply. However, with the re-opening of export markets and the ability of the industry to restructure, using funds provided by the Government, medium-term prospects look more promising.

David Heath: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that reply, although it is a slight understatement to say that the industry is going through a difficult time. Historically, the pig industry has neither sought nor received Government subsidy and it is still reeling from the after-effects of, first, classical swine fever and then foot and mouth. It still cannot believe that the Government are not taking action to prevent illegal meat imports.
	Will the Minister tell us about the pig industry restructuring scheme? The Government set aside £66 million, which was welcome. How much of that has been spent, how has it been distributed and what will be done with any residue to help our hard-pressed pig industry?

Elliot Morley: I certainly accept the hon. Gentleman's point that the pig industry has never really sought support from the Government and the taxpayer, and it deserves great credit for that. As he rightly states, the industry has been under some pressure and we acknowledge that. The full £66 million for the pig industry restructuring support scheme was not taken up. The financing is complex and £3 million was used for business recovery schemes, which can also benefit the pig industry. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government have been successful in getting pig exports moving again earlier than expected and that will doubtless have a beneficial effect on the whole sector.
	I have to take issue with the hon. Gentleman over the point about illegal imports. We are spending a great deal of time, money and resources to ensure that illegal imports do not get into this country and we shall, of course, continue to review and strengthen those efforts. However, no one can give a 100 per cent. guarantee that it will not happen.

Waste Management

David Amess: If she will make a statement on the Government's waste management strategy.

Margaret Beckett: The national waste strategy, published in May last year, seeks to encourage more sustainable resource use by reducing the amount of waste created and by extracting value wherever possible from the waste that is produced.
	We have set demanding statutory recycling targets for local authorities, increased the landfill tax, held consultations on a system of tradable landfill permits to achieve the required diversion from landfill, and established the waste resources action programme to help create stable and efficient markets for recycled materials and products.
	Later this month we shall hold a waste summit for those with an interest in waste issues to discuss what more needs to be done.

David Amess: The Secretary of State will be aware that in Essex recycling is running at 19 per cent. countywide; in civic amenities the figure is as high as 53 per cent. Does she realise that in order to meet increased targets local authorities will incur huge extra costs? In July, the comprehensive spending review promised more money—specifically, £140 million was promised to local authorities. Will she explain why local authorities have not so far received any extra money?

Margaret Beckett: The hon. Gentleman correctly says that extra resources were made available, but that was, of course, over a three-year period. I accept his point about what is being done already by Essex, among other local authorities, but he will know that it is important for the Government to encourage them to do far more, and that only through a constructive and effective partnership between Government and local authorities can we reach and achieve the targets. I anticipate that all those issues will be thrashed out at the waste summit.

Energy Efficiency

Ian Lucas: What steps the Government are taking to encourage a reduction in the use of energy.

Michael Meacher: The Government are committed to improving energy efficiency as a highly cost-effective way of achieving our climate change goals. The energy efficiency commitment will, from next April, provide a substantial boost to domestic energy efficiency activity. The Energy Saving Trust and the Carbon Trust receive more than £66 million from the Department to promote domestic, business and public sector energy efficiency and the take-up of low-carbon technology. The climate change levy, and its associated voluntary agreements, are also an important spur to business energy efficiency.

Ian Lucas: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Is there not still a danger that the Government are focusing too much attention on the production of energy rather than its reduction? Is it not appropriate that the Government support measures such as the Home Energy Conservation Bill—promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) and due to receive its Second Reading on 30 November—through which the public would be made aware that they, too, have a responsibility to reduce energy consumption?

Michael Meacher: We are very concerned that efforts to promote energy efficiency are directed not only at business but at domestic households. There are basically three ways to do so.
	First, there is the Home Energy Conservation Act 1995, which we are strengthening, and we shall look very carefully at the Bill that my hon. Friend mentioned. Secondly, there is the home energy efficiency scheme, of £150 million a year, which is on track to meet the public service agreement target of reaching 600,000 households over the next three years. Thirdly, there is the energy efficiency component, which gives suppliers of gas and electricity a major incentive to improve the efficiency by which energy is conveyed to households. Those three together will mean that domestic households make a full contribution to meeting the climate change targets.

Business of the House

Eric Forth: May I ask the Leader of the House for the business for next week, please?

Robin Cook: The business for next week will be as follows:
	Monday 19 November—Second Reading of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill.
	Motion to approve the Human Rights Act 1998 (Designated Derogation) Order 2001.
	Tuesday 20 November—Second Reading of the NHS Reform and Health Care Professions Bill.
	Wednesday 21 November—Consideration in Committee of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill (1st Day).
	Thursday 22 November—Second Reading of the British Overseas Territories Bill [Lords].
	Motion on the Railway Administration Order Rules 2001.
	Friday 23 November—Private Members' Bills.
	The provisional business for the following week will be as follows:
	Monday 26 November—Conclusion of consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill.
	Tuesday 27 November—Second Reading of the Employment Bill.
	Wednesday 28 November—Second Reading of the Civil Defence (Grants) Bill.
	Thursday 29 November—A debate on the Bristol Royal Infirmary inquiry report on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
	Friday 30 November—Private Members' Bills.
	The House will wish to know that on Monday 19 November, there will be a debate relating to the draft general budget of the European Community for 2002 in European Standing Committee B.
	The House will also wish to know that on Wednesday 28 November, there will be a debate relating to the security of energy supply in European Standing Committee C.
	[Monday 19 November 2001:
	European Standing Committee B—Unnumbered European Union Document; European Communities Draft Budget for 2002; Relevant European Scrutiny Committee Report: HC 152-iv, (2001-02).
	[Wednesday 28 November 2001:
	European Standing Committee C—Relevant European Union Documents: 5619/01, 7218/01: Security of Energy Supply. Relevant European Scrutiny Committee Reports: HC 28-xi (2000-01) and HC 152-iii(2001-02).

Eric Forth: I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the future business. Last Thursday, at column 367, I raised with the Leader of the House the matter of the vote next Monday on the Human Rights Act motion, and the Leader of the House gave what I thought was a rather complacent answer on that, suggesting that a deferred vote was an adequate way of dealing with such an important matter. I have no doubt that the Leader of the House is aware that yesterday, his hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) returned to that issue, and said that
	"there must be certain items that the House feels are of the utmost importance and deserve a vote immediately after the debate."
	You, Mr. Speaker, said:
	"I have no powers in these matters, but the hon. Gentleman will know who does. He"—
	that is, the hon. Member for Nottingham, North—
	"should take the matter up with the appropriate Minister."—[Official Report, 14 November 2001; Vol. 374, c. 880.]
	I think that the Leader of the House is the appropriate Minister, and therefore I ask him yet again: will he listen not only to Conservative Members but to his own hon. Friends, who have now rumbled the fact that to have the disgraceful let-out of the deferred Division used on such an important and substantive matter is frankly unacceptable, and will he, even at this late stage, please look at that matter again?
	I also want to follow up a matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) who, on 13 November at column 713, raised a point of order with you, Mr. Speaker, about the very important matter of the report of the parliamentary ombudsman on the ministerial code. He said there—the ombudsman said—
	"I have concluded that there is no valid reason under the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information why this information should not be released, and that there is a public interest in making it available. I"—
	that is, the ombudsman—
	"therefore much regret that Ministers have not agreed to the release of the information."
	We must have a debate on this matter, must we not? This is a matter of the utmost importance. Here is the ombudsman saying that the Government are engaged in a cover-up—and, worse than that, in a cover-up relating to Ministers and the ministerial code of practice. I hope that the Leader of the House can tell us that we shall have an urgent debate on this matter, so that the Government can come clean.
	On 1 November, in a written reply to my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), the Secretary of State for Defence said that he was
	"currently considering the conclusions of a review on the employment of women in the armed forces"
	and would
	"make a further statement in due course."—[Official Report, 1 November 2001; Vol. 373, c. 767W.]
	Surprise, surprise: no such statement has been forthcoming, but equally unsurprisingly, in The Sunday Telegraph last Sunday, 11 November, we find an item saying that
	"the Defence Secretary is understood to have made the decision"—
	on women in the armed forces—
	"after receiving overwhelming evidence from the Chiefs of Staff . . . One official said: 'The trials proved that to allow women to serve in the infantry or armoured corps would undermine the operational capability of those units which could not be allowed to happen.'"
	We hear that we may be about to send some of our armed forces into the theatre of war in Afghanistan. Are they going to go without us hearing on the Floor of the House what the position is with regard to the use of women in an operational capacity in the armed forces? We yet again have an example of no statement in the House but an inspired leak or briefing in the press. It simply is not good enough, and certainly not in this case.
	Finally, I think that we should have an urgent debate on what I would describe as the delicate condition of certain Members. We hear, do we not, that some Members of Parliament—probably mainly the babes on the Labour Back Benches—need counselling, because apparently the fact that—

Douglas Hogg: Cuddling.

Eric Forth: My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) says "cuddling". If he is volunteering to cuddle the babes, that is a matter for him. However, there is a serious point here, is there not? The House of Commons, as everyone knows, sits from 2.30 in the afternoon until often as late as 10 o'clock at night. We also know that, generally speaking, barely half of the Government Back Benchers are even present when the House sits—that is a matter of record—and we also know that we recently voted ourselves substantially more staff to ease the burden on our delicate persons. I believe that we must have a debate, and I suspect and hope that the Leader of the House can grant it urgently, and I would suggest that it is called: "Stressed-out MPs: Myth or reality?"

Robin Cook: I can only assure the right hon. Gentleman that if any of my colleagues need counselling or cuddling, they will not be turning to him.
	I do think, on a day when I have announced that we shall be having three days of debate on legislation against terrorism, that we shall be having a debate on NHS reform, and that we shall be having a debate on civil defence, none of the issues that the right hon. Gentleman has raised at the Dispatch Box, however entertaining they may be, match the severity of the international crisis or the nature of affairs at home or what our constituents are interested in.
	On the employment of women in the armed forces, of course there has been no announcement of any change, nor am I aware that any change is likely be announced. As long as there is no change, the present position applies. However, I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State for Defence and his Ministers have had quite a bit to think about over the last two months. It may have passed him by, but it is important that they should focus on the international situation, and just a word of congratulation from the right hon. Gentleman on the progress that we have been making in Afghanistan would have been welcome in a very long set of questions.
	On the ombudsman, the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the ombudsman never said that there was a cover-up. He did not say it, even in the words that the right hon. Gentleman quoted. I am sure that if he had said it, the right hon. Gentleman would have made a point of quoting that.
	Finally, on the question of deferred Divisions, what I said last week was that we actually have a much larger turnout of Members voting. [Interruption.] I have checked the figures. Since we introduced deferred Divisions, on average 463 Members have voted in those Divisions. It is in everyone's interests that there should be as large a vote as possible on the derogation from the human rights convention. I return the right hon. Gentleman's question for a response—possibly, a Conservative Member can answer it. That derogation permits us to detain terrorists whom we cannot deport. Is the Conservative party really going to vote against that on Monday and leave those terrorists at large in Britain?

Tony Banks: May I draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to early-day motion 323, which was signed by 225 Members from all parties and calls for the House to make an early decision about hunting wild mammals with dogs?
	[That this House congratulates the Scottish Parliament on the passage of the first stage of the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Bill; looks forward to taking the earliest possible opportunity to re-affirm its stand on the abolition of hunting; and reminds Her Majesty's Government of the overwhelming support for abolition in the House and the high expectation amongst the electorate that the Government will honour the manifesto pledge to enable Parliament to reach a conclusion on this issue in respect of England and Wales.]
	I remind my right hon. Friend of the Labour manifesto undertaking and the inclusion of the measure in the Queen's Speech. We have had plenty of time since we returned after the summer recess to debate it. Can we resolve the matter by a straight resolution of the House, so that it can go straight to the other place rather than having to go through all the stages of a Bill yet again? Have any Ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs asked my right hon. Friend for time for the House to resolve the matter? It is about time that the Government started to think about 225 Members of Parliament, rather than appeasing the Countryside Alliance.

Robin Cook: The position as stated in the Queen's Speech was that there would be a free vote on that issue in this Session. That will take place—there has been no reason to change that. As my hon. Friend knows because I discussed the matter with him, there has been no shift from that position. I note his interesting suggestion about proceeding by resolution rather than by a Bill. Obviously, that is a consideration. I see no reason not to anticipate that there will be a free vote this Session.

Paul Tyler: First, does the Leader of the House recall representations that were made to him and supported on both sides of the House that, by amalgamating so many different topics in Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions, we are in danger of squeezing out important issues—notably, those relating to agriculture and the countryside? Will he look again at the practice that was used for Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions questions, which were split in two so that there was obvious opportunity for questions relating to both subjects to be reached?
	Secondly, will the Leader of the House tell us when the Government propose that the ratification of the Kyoto protocol should take place? Does he intend that there should be a debate in the House before or after it takes place?
	Thirdly, I certainly recognise the importance of the legislation on anti-terrorism, crime and security that is coming before the House next week and the week after. Will he demonstrate how seriously the Government take concerns about that legislation? The Bill has 125 clauses and already controversial issues have been raised, not least by the Master of the Rolls this morning. The right hon. Gentleman said when dealing with the provisional business that he expects us to deal with the legislation in just eight days and with limited opportunities to discuss those extremely important issues. Will he undertake to the House that, if it appears as a result of our progress next week that we need more time to discuss it in the following week, the programming of the legislation will be adjusted accordingly?

Robin Cook: On DEFRA questions, the problem to which the hon. Gentleman referred has been raised before, and I note that he is saying that the system is still causing hon. Members difficulty. We will continue to discuss it to try to find a way forward.
	On the Kyoto protocol, it is only within the past few weeks that we have achieved agreement at Marrakech on the protocol. I hope that we can progress the matter with all due speed. However, Britain has everything to be proud of in this matter. The cuts that we are offering in greenhouse gases are greater than those offered by any other country and we have consistently taken a lead to try to get the agreement that was subsequently secured in Marrakech.
	I appreciate the co-operation that we have received in drawing up the timetable for the House to deal with the terrorism Bill. I hope that we will be able to meet that timetable, which provides a generous allocation of time to consider the main issue. Indeed, on the second day, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, we propose to sit until midnight and thus make available additional time to the House and ensure that Third Reading does not take time from Committee proceedings. The timetable must be balanced against the fact that we are in a grave situation. As a result of 11 September we know the severity and potential scale of the threat that we face. While our constituents certainly want us to probe, test and scrutinise the Bill adequately, they would find it odd if Parliament were incapable of enacting measures by the end of this year that we think are essential to ensure that they have proper security.

Gerald Kaufman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that some Labour Members whose loyalty to the Government is regarded as verging on the grotesque, or even exceeding it, are growing increasingly impatient at the Government's failure to progress the vote on hunting with dogs? We expect that vote by Christmas so that, should the House vote in favour of a ban on such hunting, there will be sufficient time in this Session to get the legislation through the House of Lords and, if necessary, to use the Parliament Acts.

Robin Cook: I would not wish to strain the loyalty of such a loyal supporter as my right hon. Friend. The programme that we mapped out in the Queen's Speech is for a full Session. Many issues listed in that speech have not yet been put before the House, but will be in due course. I am confident that the commitment that he mentions will be one of them.

Nicholas Winterton: I ask this question of the right hon. Gentleman because, as Leader of the House, he represents the interests not only of the House but all its Members. Is he aware of the growing concern about the extraordinarily arbitrary powers of the Electoral Commission, which has apparently decided that Members of Parliament who go abroad under the auspices of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association or the Inter-Parliamentary Union, or as a member of a Select Committee, are obliged to notify the commission of that visit within 30 days, otherwise they are committing an offence? Is that not absolute nonsense? Is he prepared to make a statement to the House and to indicate that, if necessary, emergency legislation will be introduced to curb that nonsense?

Robin Cook: I am very happy to agree totally with the hon. Gentleman's comments about the decision of the Electoral Commission, of which I am aware. I have also been privileged to see the correspondence in which the Speaker robustly asserted the rights of the House in this matter. It is a bizarre ruling on the part of the commission and it carries the risk of undermining its credibility and authority as a body of common sense as well as of legal standing.

Peter Kilfoyle: Given the current salience of terrorism in the public mind, will my right hon. Friend consider scheduling a debate on the chemical warfare that is being waged—in part, allegedly, using British-produced chemicals—in the southern provinces of Colombia and the adjacent provinces of Ecuador under the auspices of Plan Colombia?

Robin Cook: I cannot say that I am aware of the matter about which my hon. Friend complains. Plainly, I will consider it and, if appropriate, draw it to the attention of the relevant Secretary of State. My hon. Friend will forgive me if I want to establish the facts before I comment.

Michael Jack: In giving the business for the week after next the Leader of the House did not mention the Chancellor's commitment to publish his pre-Budget report on 27 November. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that it is still the case that the Chancellor intends to make that statement? If he does, will he assure me that thereafter, in the light of the recession in manufacturing industry, the rise in unemployment, questions of affordability about future Government expenditure and falling tax revenues, there will be a debate in Government time about the state of the British economy?

Robin Cook: I am happy to confirm that it is expected that the Chancellor will give his pre-Budget report on 27 November. It is not normally announced as part of the forthcoming business. The fact that it was not announced should not indicate any change in that plan. I find it breathtaking that any Conservative Member should refer to unemployment, which is as low now as it has been for a generation. It is still below a million and that compares with 3 million under the Conservatives. If they want to debate unemployment, we will be delighted to do so.

Ann Cryer: May we have a debate on the work of the Environment Agency to improve flood defences in various parts of the country? In my constituency at Stockbridge the work to defend land near that part of the River Aire and further north will not commence until next summer, which means that many of my constituents are extremely anxious every time we have heavy rain. They are terrified that there will again be flooding only 12 months after it occurred before. That anxiety is not helped by the fact that some insurance companies have been less than helpful. Their sluggish response has meant that some of my constituents have still not moved back into their homes and one constituent has been told that there will be a £10,000 excess when she renews her insurance policy.

Robin Cook: I fully understand the importance of that matter to my hon. Friend's constituents, and I am glad that she has had this opportunity to raise it, which will be noted by my colleagues in the relevant Department. We have invested a very large sum of additional funds in providing flood defences, and many of those projects have proceeded, but it does, of course, take time to put in place what is often complex and significant engineering work. I very much hope that the project to which she refers will go ahead as soon as possible. In the meantime, I draw the attention of the House to the fact that a debate on flood defences will take place in Westminster Hall next week, in which my hon. Friend and others can raise those matters.

Andrew MacKay: Cannot the Leader of the House understand that hon. Members on both sides of the House believe that the motion to derogate part of the Human Rights Act 1998 is a very important matter, which should preferably be considered in prime time and certainly with a Division straight after the debate? It is his duty, surely, to ensure that that happens. Most reasonable people think that a Division should take place immediately after a serious debate, not on the following Wednesday for the convenience of the Prime Minister's voting record.

Robin Cook: It is, of course, an important debate, and it seems that I am now hearing the answer to my earlier question: the Conservative party intends that those who are terrorists but who are not being deported—

Douglas Hogg: Not so.

Robin Cook: Well, that would certainly appear to be the implication of the enthusiasm for voting there and then. It is an important issue, so we should enable as many Members as possible to take part, which is why I robustly think it right to defer the Division.

John Smith: Further to the Prime Minister's answer to the question that I asked last week, can we expect the Secretary of State for Health or the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, or both, to make a statement to the House on the Government's contribution to the research, to be undertaken by the World Health Organisation, into deep vein thrombosis and air travel?

Robin Cook: I cannot promise that a statement will be made on that matter, but I will certainly ensure that my hon. Friend receives a full response from the relevant Department.

John Hayes: You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that yesterday at Prime Minister's Question Time, the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mrs. Lawrence) referred to the campaign that the Haemophilia Society is running in relation to the estimated 5,000 haemophiliacs who were infected with HIV or hepatitis as result of faulty blood transfusions. The Prime Minister gave a woolly reply; he said that he would consider those matters and he promised to review them. We know what the Prime Minister's reviews often turn into. Will the Leader of the House therefore arrange an urgent statement, so that those matters can be addressed on behalf of those very vulnerable people?

Robin Cook: I recall my right hon. Friend's response, and it was one of great sympathy and understanding of the problems of those who have been infected in that way. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the issue relates to cases that date from the 1980s, when we were not in office, but the conduct of the then Government was entirely correct. They introduced the proper means of treating the products that were being used as soon as it was technically available, and they cannot be held responsible for failing to introduce it earlier than that. It is for that reason that the Department of Health resists a claim for compensation, for which there is plainly no legal liability, but it is, of course, willing to explore other ways in which it can help and in which it can ensure that there is no repetition of what happened in the 1980s.

Stephen McCabe: Does my right hon. Friend join me in celebrating the news that a further 73 police recruits commenced training in the west midlands last week, taking the figure to well over 400 new recruits in the past 10 months? However, does he recognise that there is growing concern about the problems of retention in the west midlands and the transfer of officers to other forces? Can we have an early debate on the problems of retention in police authorities such as that in the west midlands? Can we specifically consider the impact of the regional allowance paid to the Met and home counties forces? Can we consider the cost of training police officers in the west midlands who then work in other police authorities?

Robin Cook: I certainly congratulate my hon. Friend's local police force on the increase that he outlined, which reflects the fact that we now have a record number of police under training to join the force. I cannot promise to hold a debate on the matter, but I draw his attention to the fact that the Home Secretary will answer questions on Monday, when he may wish to raise the issue.

Roy Beggs: Earlier this week, the Government published a draft Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill and an implementation plan to take forward the recommendations of the review of the criminal justice system. Does the Leader of the House accept that an undertaking was also given that the Government will review the operation of the Parades Commission and the legislation under which it was established? Can he say when that commitment will be fulfilled and the issue will be brought before the House?

Robin Cook: I cannot announce such a date to the House, as that is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who is heavily engaged in ensuring that we fulfil our commitments at the present time. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that a number of reviews are under way, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend has that matter under consideration as well.

Julie Morgan: During last week's business questions, I raised with the Leader of the House the issue of the Children's Society withdrawing from all its work in Wales. Since then, I have learned that that decision was made with virtually no consultation with all the other agencies involved in the work. May I appeal again to the Leader of the House to use all his influence with his colleagues to try to get the Children's Society to reverse its decision? The Children's Society has 13 projects in Wales, working on advocacy with the most vulnerable children in care, as a result of the Waterhouse report. Will he convey to those involved the damage that that decision has done to the voluntary sector—not only in Wales, but throughout the United Kingdom—especially given the large amounts of public funding in those projects in partnership with the voluntary sector?

Robin Cook: I fully understand the reasons for my hon. Friend's concern about that issue, and I congratulate her on the persistence with which she has pursued a matter that is obviously of great importance to her constituents. I am sure that my hon. Friends at the Wales Office will wish to do all that they can, but we do not have any direct control over the matter—after all, she refers to a charitable organisation. It appears not to have had a good record of consulting on its decision, but my hon. Friends at the Wales Office will share her concern and will be willing to assist in any way that is practical for them.

Sydney Chapman: Has the Leader of the House reached any decision on whether he will propose that there should be a short recess between Christmas and Easter, called a constituency week? If he claims, quite understandably, that that depends on the pressure and progress of business, surely that problem could be overcome by making a compensatory adjustment to the long summer recess. Does he accept that it would be extremely helpful to hon. Members on both sides of the House to know as soon as possible whether there will be such a recess, so that we can plan our constituency engagements, which many of us could not carry out if the House were sitting?

Robin Cook: I totally accept the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. Hon. Members are assisted in making maximum use of such time if that recess is predictable and known well in advance. That is why, in the first week back after the long recess, I announced the recess for the forthcoming Christmas and new year period—not to universal approbation from those on the Conservative Front Bench. Nevertheless I did so, and I can assure the House that I will announce the dates of future recesses as soon as I can.

John Robertson: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the demise of Atlantic Telecom, which has gone into receivership? Is he also aware of the fact that Oftel has been absolutely no use whatever to the people who have been affected and that PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is in charge of the receivership, has also been unhelpful? In fact, as they say where I come from, it is about as much good as a chocolate fireguard. Will my right hon. Friend also try to help a company such as BT, which wants to take on the responsibility for the service provided by that company, but unfortunately at a cost? Can we have a debate not just about the fact that Atlantic Telecom and similar companies have gone bust, but about looking after small businesses? Perhaps we could create a body along the lines of the Association of British Travel Agents to look after those businesses and stop them going out of business.

Robin Cook: I am aware from my constituency experience how difficult it can be for companies that are owed money by one that has gone into receivership. I congratulate my hon. Friend on his vigilance on behalf of his constituents and the enterprises in his area. I will draw his remarks to the attention of the appropriate Secretary of State. My hon. Friend will no doubt wish to pursue this, as he has done today, through the other devices open to him as a constituency Member with an issue to raise and interesting proposals to make.

Edward Garnier: The Leader of the House will know that the Youth Justice Board is a public body funded by the Home Office, and that it publishes a periodical called Youth Justice Board News. The October issue has at its masthead a red box including the words "Pledge met—special pull-out supplement". One turns to the exciting special supplement to find a photograph of the leader of the Labour party, the Labour party pledge card and other Labour party political propaganda. Will the Leader of the House please arrange for a Home Office Minister to come to the Dispatch Box as soon as possible to explain how they understand the difference between public spending and party political spending?

Robin Cook: It sounds an excellent publication, and I shall instruct my office to put me on its mailing list. I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for drawing to the attention of the House and the public how well we have met the pledges we made in the last election.

Mark Todd: Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on competition policy? This request is prompted by the acquisition of Woodville Airbags in my constituency by an American business which, within 72 hours, announced the closure of the plant and the transfer of its work to plants in Romania, with the loss of 304 jobs. This involves nearly 30 per cent. of the European car airbags market, and means that the Company has effectively bought the order book and disposed of the work force. That seems like the unacceptable face of capitalism to me. May we have a debate on the issue?

Robin Cook: My hon. Friend will be aware that the Government hope to improve a number of areas of competition policy, which is why we committed ourselves in the Queen's Speech to an enterprise Bill.
	My hon. Friend draws attention to a matter that is of concern to his area, particularly to those of his constituents employed by the company. Having represented companies that have been taken over, I fully understand the deep concern of those who work in a company that is acquired in that way. It is Trade and Industry questions next Thursday and my hon. Friend will no doubt wish to raise the matter then.

Douglas Hogg: I reinforce what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) with regard to the derogation order. The Leader of the House knows full well that under article 15, the provision of the convention can only be derogated in time of war or other public emergencies threatening the life of the nation. Surely the matter really should be discussed in prime time.
	The Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill, which has 125 clauses, eight schedules and 114 pages, is to clear the House in seven days. There is no way in which the legislation will be properly scrutinised. If it be true that part of the Bill is really urgent, it cannot be true of the entire Bill. Surely the proper way is to identify that which is really urgent, make it the subject of a very short Bill, and take the remainder of the proposed legislation in the proper way.

Robin Cook: I would not say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I am grateful to his right hon. Friends for having agreed the timetable that he has just attacked. They were right to agree to the timetable because it is important that we demonstrate to the public that we are vigilant in ensuring that we take all steps to provide for their security.
	It is true that the Bill covers a wide range of issues, spanning several Departments. That is because our response to 11 September has to be comprehensive. Are Conservative Members who wish to challenge the motion really saying that they are prepared to oppose it? Are they prepared to account for a situation in which terrorists whom we cannot deport are allowed to go free? If they are not saying that, I do not understand their concern.

Tony McWalter: Does my right hon. Friend accept that those who are as passionately committed to the fight against terrorism as he is and who supported with considerable enthusiasm the efforts of the Prime Minister in the current emergency nevertheless believe that there are different ways of translating that commitment against terrorism into legislation? Some of us have considerable reservations about the path that the Government have chosen. I commend my right hon. Friend's effort to get amendments to the Bill accepted from last Tuesday, but because that effort failed, we are left with an even more constricted timetable than he initially envisaged. I hope that he will listen to Labour as well as Opposition Members who wish to see the matter effectively debated and, if necessary, suitably amended.

Robin Cook: I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that the motion providing for amendments to be tabled in advance of Second Reading was carried last night. I regret that it was not carried earlier—the reason was that the right hon. and learned Member for Grantham and Sleaford opposed it.

Douglas Hogg: My constituency is Sleaford and North Hykeham.

Robin Cook: The fact remains that the right hon. and learned Gentleman blocked an extra day for Members to table amendments.

Alistair Carmichael: May I bring to the Leader of the House's attention a problem relating to the taking of legislation in this Chamber as a result of the passing of a Sewel motion in the Scottish Parliament? There are often areas of Executive responsibility that are not part of a Bill but have a bearing on its passage. I refer in particular to the Proceeds of Crime Bill, which is in Committee, and the need for assurances about the operation of civil legal aid north of the border.
	I invite the right hon. Gentleman, as Chairman of the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House of Commons, to look at achieving a means of rectifying that defect at the earliest opportunity to ensure that there is proper parliamentary scrutiny of Executive actions wherever the Minister is, whether here or in Edinburgh?

Robin Cook: I am happy to examine the point that the hon. Gentleman has raised. If there is a problem, I am sure that, with good will, we can find a way forward. In general, the process of operating by Sewel motion has worked well on both sides and there has been good co-operation from both sides. Only last week we had a joint ministerial council with representatives of the devolved bodies to discuss an approach on European policy, on which there was strong co-operation. I welcome the fact that all parties are working together to find an outcome that everyone can respect in all parts of the United Kingdom.

Wayne David: I draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend to early-day motion 420:
	[That this House welcomes the progress made in paying out compensation to miners and their widows in Wales which has now topped £100 million; notes that £1 million a week is being paid out in Wales; acknowledges that initially the rate of payment has not been as rapid as all would desire; recognises the important contribution of the Welsh Monitoring Sub Group set up by the Secretary of State for Wales; notes that the group by bringing together all the stakeholders has succeeded in pushing forward the prioritising of testing for older miners; looks forward to seeing an increase in more full and final offers being made; and congratulates all those who have campaigned for justice for miners and their widows.]
	Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Government on the progress that has been made on miners' compensation in Wales? Will he also urge the Government to make greater progress in making full and final offers?

Robin Cook: The Government have sought to resolve the issue as best they can. It is a complex issue which, as my hon. Friend knows, affects large numbers of people, including, no doubt, some of his constituents. We hope to complete the work as quickly as we reasonably can, and every possible effort is being made to secure that objective.

George Young: I invite the Leader of the House to reflect on the uncharacteristically intemperate reply that he gave my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), who asked very courteously to have a debate on the economy in Government time. Has it not been the practice of the House to debate the economy in Government time in the autumn ever since the right hon. Gentleman and I came here? Is he seriously suggesting that we should spend the first six months of this Parliament with no debate in Government time on the economy?

Robin Cook: I have no doubt that we will debate the economy at some point in the future. On 27 November, there will be a very full and lengthy exchange on economic matters when we debate the pre-Budget report.
	As Leader of the House, I have to balance the wish of my Treasury colleagues for a debate and their keenness to put before the House what we are achieving in the economy with all the other competing requirements many more of which have arisen during this discussion.

David Chaytor: May I tell my right hon. Friend about an unusual case in my constituency in which a head teacher was suspended from his duties following allegations of interference with the conduct of examinations? He was then subjected to an inquiry by the local authority which was presented to the governing body. That body reinstated the head teacher without making public the results of the inquiry. Does he agree that it casts an interesting light on the new burdens on school governors, particularly in respect of their employment responsibilities? Can he find time in the near future for a debate on the role and responsibilities of school governors?

Robin Cook: I hear what my hon. Friend says, and I am sure that his constituents have also heard him raise the issue. Given the other pressures on business, I cannot promise a debate on the matter, but I am sure that he will wish to pursue it with the relevant Ministers.

Charles Hendry: Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement on yesterday's decision to appoint 100 Labour Back Benchers as so-called ministerial sponsors, a role that has been so effectively carried out in the past by just two people—the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Woodward) and his butler? The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that, to many of us, ministerial sponsorship sounds rather like the London zoo scheme to sponsor a camel or a crocodile, or, in the case of the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, a lame duck. Is not this just a scheme to extend the payroll vote by appointing 100 Members of Parliament, who have not gained promotion, essentially to be Parliamentary Private Secretaries to the Parliamentary Private Secretaries?

Robin Cook: It may be helpful if I assure the House that such appointments will have no involvement in the payroll vote one way or the other. I regard newspaper reports of that as mischievous and untrue, and I am happy to ensure that the press keeps up its high standards of truth and accuracy, which it did not on this occasion. As to my hon. Friends promoting the Government's successes, I am pleased to tell the hon. Gentleman that there was such enthusiasm for the idea that it was passed unanimously by the parliamentary Labour party.

Tam Dalyell: Highly desirable though it is that Afghan women should be able to throw off their burkas, was it for this that we went to war, or was it to apprehend al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden? Are we not in danger of swapping one set of warlords for another, who may or may not help us to apprehend al-Qaeda? Ought we not have a serious debate about that, given that we still have great problems in Pakistan, with its nuclear weapons and the pleadings of the Pakistanis not to continue bombing during Ramadan?

Robin Cook: My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that the volume of the bombing has diminished markedly as a result of events on the ground and is much more concentrated on one particular part of Afghanistan. He is absolutely right—nobody at the Dispatch Box has suggested otherwise—that the primary aim is to bring to justice those who perpetrated the appalling mass murders of 11 September and to break up the al-Qaeda network. We are now much closer to being in a position to achieve that than we were a week ago.
	I fully share my hon. Friend's concern that no terrorist group should ever get hold of a nuclear weapon. I only say to him that if we had followed his counsel and not taken any action in Afghanistan, that would have been much more likely to happen than it is now.

Julian Lewis: Does not the question from the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), the Father of the House, illustrate the point that during the crisis, the Conservative Opposition have given the Government far more solid support for the necessary military action than they have been able to rely on from their own Back Benchers? Does not that mean that when my right hon. and hon. Friends raise questions about whether a vote will take place at the end of a debate or, inappropriately, in a deferred Division, it is not right for the Leader of the House to presume that we, rather than his own rebels, will divide the House, so our point stands?
	May I remind the Leader of the House that in answer to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) about the combat effectiveness gender study, the right hon. Gentleman said that as the policy was not going to change, there would not be a statement? However, the Secretary of State for Defence, who was accurately quoted by my right hon. Friend, said:
	"I am currently considering the conclusions of a review on the employment of women in the armed forces and will make a further statement in due course."—[Official Report, 1 November 2001; Vol. 373, c. 767W.]
	Will we get that statement, or must we just continue to read about it in The Sunday Telegraph?

Robin Cook: That is not what I said to the House. I said that the policy on the ground would not change unless a policy was announced, and that that would require an announcement to Parliament. I fully recognise that, and I did not suggest otherwise.
	On the other matter that the hon. Gentleman raises, we fully appreciate that the policy has been bipartisan. We welcome the fact that it has had support in all quarters of the House, and not just on the two Front Benches. It has also had the full support of my hon. Friends on the Benches behind me. When we had a Division on the subject, more than 300 Labour Members voted with the Government, and only eight voted against. That is not a basis on which one can erect a major case for a split among Labour Members. There has been overwhelming support for the Government's position from my hon. Friends, as well as from Opposition Members.

David Heath: We had a welcome statement from the Prime Minister yesterday on the rapidly changing position in Afghanistan. Does the Leader of the House agree that a primary concern for many hon. Members and, indeed, our constituents, is the fate of the 7.5 million Afghan people who face not only a difficult winter but a desperate situation? They will want to know that effective corridors have now been established from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to northern Afghanistan. They will want to be assured that money will be promised to the Governments of Iran and Pakistan for the succour of those in the refugee camps, and they will want to know that the money promised by the international community is getting through to Afghanistan. Is there is any possibility within the next week of a debate on this subject or a statement by the Secretary of State for International Development, whom I see in the Chamber?

Robin Cook: This is an issue on which the House has held a full debate on a number of occasions. There has been an even larger number of statements, including one from the Secretary of State for International Development. We shall obviously keep under review the question of when it will be appropriate to provide another similar opportunity.
	On the substance of the issue, I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no shortage of money to fund the actions that we need to take to support the refugees who are outside the country and those in Afghanistan who are in need. The United Kingdom has been both early and generous in providing its support. I am pleased to tell the House that the volume of food entering Afghanistan has increased markedly. I am told that over the past week it has averaged over 2,000 tonnes, which is a substantial improvement on the position a month ago. If we can maintain that rate of supply, we will be able to ensure that we have sufficient stocks in Afghanistan. I shall only say to the House that of course we would not be in this position if we had not maintained the military pressure on the Taliban, which has enabled us to open up many more corridors into Afghanistan to reach the people in need.

Anne McIntosh: The Leader of the House will be aware of my interest in Railtrack, First Group and Eurotunnel. Will he advise me on the powers of Select Committees not only to compel witnesses to appear before them but to answer questions put to them?
	I do not know whether he has had an opportunity to read the transcript of evidence from the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in that Select Committee yesterday. Having admitted that he met the chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority, the right hon. Gentleman would not tell us when, and having admitted that he had prepared draft emergency legislation to remove the rail regulator's capacity for independent action, he would not tell us when he had done so. Will the Leader of the House compel the Secretary of State to come to the Dispatch Box early next week and answer the questions that he refused to answer in the Select Committee?

Robin Cook: I do not think that a single member of the Cabinet has appeared here or elsewhere more often to answer the entirely bogus allegations thrown at him by Opposition Members. We had a debate on the matter last Tuesday. Given the way in which my right hon. Friend trounced the points put to him by the Opposition, they would be wise not to attempt to repeat that experiment or to ask me to arrange it.

George Osborne: Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the availability of digital hearing aids on the NHS? Many Members have received correspondence on the subject, but so far we have had only a half-hour debate in Westminster Hall. Can he arrange a longer debate so that we can raise an issue that is important to the 2 million people who do not have access to the digital hearing aids that would vastly improve their quality of life? Many hon. Members from all parties have signed the relevant early-day motion on the subject, and we would be grateful for a debate.

Robin Cook: The hon. Gentleman makes his request with clarity and courtesy. I shall bear it in mind along with the many other requests that I have received this afternoon, but not everyone is going to be happy. In the meantime, he will be aware that we are to debate the NHS Reform and Health Care Professions Bill next week. I am sure that the Speaker will allow him to make a glancing reference to that issue.

Chris Grayling: I want to consider the number of places allocated on the Liaison Committee to the Select Committee on Transport, Local Government and the Regions. The Leader of the House will be aware that the Government slipped through in the small print of the Order Paper earlier this week a measure that will result in the hon. Members for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) or for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett) losing their place on the Liaison Committee. Why has the right hon. Gentleman decided to downgrade the Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee, especially as its two active Sub-Committees do as much work as a main Committee? Is that decision a mere consequence of the Government trying to get their revenge for the trouble that they had over the appointment of the chairmanship of that Committee earlier this year?

Robin Cook: For once, I find the hon. Gentleman's question almost breathtaking. He suggests that we slipped the measure through, but we debated it in prime time. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and I took part in the debate. The Order Paper was in front of us. There was no question of it being slipped through. Not a single Member in that debate made the point that the hon. Gentleman has raised, and he did not turn up to raise it.
	As for the treatment of the Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee, it will be entitled to precisely the same representation as any other Select Committee. It is for it to decide who shall go on the Liaison Committee. Indeed, the terms of the motion before the House do not specify which Committee member will serve on the Liaison Committee. It is entirely possible for my hon. Friends the Members for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) or for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett) to represent the Committee. The matter rests in the hands of the Committee. It is for its members to decide who they want on the Liaison Committee, and I would not presume to offer them advice.

Gregory Barker: Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—I see her on the Bench beside him—to come to the House to make a statement on the growing disarray of the postal service in my constituency, especially in Bexhill? Since the problem was first raised some three weeks ago by the Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, the problem has snowballed. More than 40 streets in Bexhill are now subject to an appalling postal service and countless letters are going astray, including this week a cheque for more than £50,000 to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which was misdelivered. Given that we stand on the threshold of the busiest time of year for the Post Office, my constituents are rightly extremely concerned and angry at the lack of postal service in our area. Will the right hon. Gentleman please arrange for a statement on that matter?

Robin Cook: I regret to inform the House that the postal service has never delivered a cheque for £50,000 to me by error. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is with me and heard what the hon. Gentleman said. I am sure that she will pursue it.

World Trade Conference

Patricia Hewitt: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the fourth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation in Doha, which concluded yesterday. I was joined in the delegation by my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for International Development and the Minister for the Environment and my noble Friend the Minister for Trade and Investment.
	I am delighted to report a successful outcome. The Doha development agenda combines the launch of a broad new round of trade negotiations with a package of measures specifically focused on the needs of developing countries. At the same time, we welcomed two important new members, China and Chinese Taipei, into the WTO. Those are landmark achievements and we cannot overstate their economic and political importance. Launching a new world trade round has always been a key priority for the United Kingdom and our European partners. As I told the House last week, it was an outcome that we were even more determined to achieve following the atrocities of 11 September.
	In the past few days we have seen significant progress in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan. At the same time, nations have come together in Doha to agree a major step forward in the war on poverty, demonstrating that the nations of the world are determined to strengthen security by sharing prosperity. By stimulating economic growth, a development-focused trade round offers the best opportunity to billions of people in developing countries to escape from poverty. With the downturn in the world economy, this historic deal gives a badly needed boost to economic confidence.
	The package that we have agreed brings real and in some cases immediate benefits to developing countries—benefits for which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has long been working. We have opened the way to greater access to the medicines that developing countries need to deal with HIV/AIDS and other serious health crises, by clarifying the existing WTO rules without compromising the incentives required to ensure that new drugs are developed for the future.
	We have ensured that the European Union will continue to give preferential treatment to imports from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries—an issue that is of enormous concern to more than 50 of our WTO colleagues, including some of the poorest countries in the world.
	We agreed on steps—both immediately and in the next year—that address developing countries' concerns over the implementation of previous WTO agreements. We reaffirmed the importance of building developing countries' capacity to participate in the global trading system and we emphasised the need for further capacity building to be an integral part of the new negotiations.
	A new round opens the prospect of increased trade in agriculture, in other goods and in services. Such trade is the most secure path to economic progress for developing countries. If we could just halve the trade protection in both developing and developed countries the wealth of developing countries would be boosted by around $150 billion a year. For the least developed countries we have also agreed the objective of duty-free and quota-free access for their products, extending to other WTO members the principle of the EU's everything but arms agreement.
	For developed as well as developing countries, the Doha agreement will provide a significant new push in a number of areas of great importance to the UK. The new trade round, for instance, gives a real boost to reform of the common agricultural policy. In particular, we have agreed to negotiate on reductions of export subsidies with a view to phasing them out. This adds to the pressure that the EU already faces from the prospect of enlargement and strengthens our hand in moving ahead with CAP reform—a long-standing UK objective, now within our sights.
	We reaffirmed the importance of sustainable development and for the first time agreed to negotiate within the WTO on environmental issues, in particular the relationship between multilateral environmental agreements and WTO rules. That was a key objective for the UK and all our European colleagues.
	We agreed important first steps towards negotiations to help investment flow more freely between countries, and to tackle cartels and other anti-competitive business practices. We reaffirmed the importance of internationally recognised core labour standards, a matter on which the International Labour Organisation leads. However, it is essential that the WTO contributes to the ILO's work on the social dimensions of globalisation. We also agreed negotiations on a number of other important areas including market access and industrial tariffs, transparency of government procurement and trade facilitation, aimed in particular at cutting customs procedures red tape.
	The new trade negotiations will be good for British business and good for British consumers. We are the world's fifth largest trader and we stand to benefit directly from further trade liberalisation. Again, if we could halve trade protection around the world the average income of every household in Britain would be boosted by nearly £500 a year.
	What was most striking about discussions in Doha this week was the growing confidence of developing countries, with African, Latin American and the poorest countries working together increasingly effectively. At the same time, and in striking contrast to the disaster in Seattle, we saw a growing trust between developed and developing countries.
	The new Doha development agenda has involved great willingness from all countries to work together flexibly and constructively to overcome considerable differences in key areas. The result is a tribute to all those involved. Certainly, all of us in the European Union owe a particular debt of gratitude to the skill and persistence of our chief negotiator, Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy.
	I pay tribute, in particular, to the state of Qatar for hosting the conference and for its excellent organisation and chairmanship. Conference chairman Kamal and the seven facilitators worked tirelessly for several days—a little longer than originally intended—to ensure that all member countries, including small and developing nations, had the opportunity to be fully involved and that proceedings were as transparent as possible. I also pay tribute to the World Trade Organisation's director- general, Mike Moore, and to its general council chairman, Stuart Harbinson.
	I want to thank the tremendous team of civil servants from six different Departments. They worked tirelessly as a team and with Ministers to help to secure our objectives. I also thank the three additional delegation members—Digby Jones of the Confederation of British Industry, Ed Sweeney of the Trades Union Congress and Penny Fowler of the UK non-governmental organisation trade network. They made an invaluable contribution.
	The UK and the EU have long sought the launch of a new trade round. We went to Doha seeking a round that would open up free, fair and sustainable trade. I am delighted today to present exactly that result to the House. However, this is just the beginning of the process. We now have to translate the agenda that we have agreed into real results for people all round the world. With more than 140 WTO members, we have taken the vital first steps. We will now work with them to complete the journey.

John Whittingdale: I thank the Secretary of State for letting me have a copy of her statement in advance and for coming to the House at the first opportunity after her return from Doha, particularly as I suspect that she and her colleagues may not have had much sleep in the past week.
	Conservative Members clearly welcome the fact that an agreement was reached at Doha. After the failure of the Seattle meeting, it would have been a disaster if the talks in Doha had broken down. However, as the Secretary of State suggested, what has been achieved marks the beginning of the process and not the end. Is it not the case that what was achieved there was merely agreement in talks about talks, and that the really hard slog has yet to start?
	The Secretary of State is right to suggest that a huge prize is at stake. The World Bank estimates that the potential boost to global income is $2,800 billion over the next 15 years. However, does she not find it slightly depressing that already the voices of protectionism are being heard, and that some of the loudest are closest to home?
	On agriculture, does the Secretary of State agree that the earlier comments of EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, in defence of farm subsidies, and the resistance of the French delegation to committing to phasing them out are, at the very least, worrying signs of the battles that lie ahead?
	Does the Secretary of State accept that achieving the fundamental reform of the common agricultural policy that is needed is likely to require even more midnight oil to be burned than was the case at Doha, and will she again confirm the Government's absolute commitment to the declaration's aim of reducing, with a view to phasing out, all forms of export subsidies?
	Will the Secretary of State give further details of the qualification inserted in the declaration to the effect that non-trade concerns will be taken into account in the negotiations, and make it clear that it should not be used as a means of reneging on those undertakings? Will she also comment on reports that the French agreed to sign the declaration only after receiving an assurance that it did not prejudge the outcome of farm trade talks?
	On TRIPS—trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights—we welcome the fact that agreement has been reached. However, does the Secretary of State accept that the pharmaceutical industry has never wished to prevent countries in the developing world from accessing vital medicines for tackling diseases such AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis? Will she none the less recognise the industry's legitimate concerns that production under licence in the developing world may lead to back-door imports of those drugs into the markets in the developed world, thus undermining the industry's intellectual property rights? Can she say what measures will be taken to prevent that from happening, and will she also clarify whether any agreement was reached on what constitutes a national emergency? Will that be left entirely for individual states to decide?
	Does the Secretary of State agree that the outcome of the talks presents an opportunity for a real opening up of markets for the goods of developing countries and that it is potentially worth far more to them than overseas aid? Does she agree that we should now ensure that the assistance that we give to developing countries is focused on helping them to take advantage of that opportunity? Does she also agree that we will need to do more to persuade some of the campaigning organisations of the real value of what has been achieved?
	Finally, does the Secretary of State agree that many countries deserve credit for their willingness to work for an agreement? As well as those that she mentioned, does she agree that particular praise is due to the United States of America for the success? However, does she also agree that the success in Doha in finding language and a text that is acceptable to all must now be translated in the next three years into real agreement to removing barriers and opening up markets. Is not success in achieving that objective just as important to global security and prosperity as the events in Afghanistan that have stolen the headlines in today's newspapers?

Patricia Hewitt: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and questions.
	On agricultural reform, I can of course confirm that the Government remain entirely committed to the objective that we have set out on several occasions—fundamental reform of the CAP, including the elimination of unfair export subsidies. We have made it clear on several occasions that non-trade issues, including issues of animal welfare that are of real concern to our constituents, should not and will not be used for disguised protectionist purposes.
	TRIPS and public medicine were referred to in our exchanges last week. We will work with the pharmaceutical companies to deal with the real problem of back-door imports of cheap drugs. I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the section in the declaration specifically on public health. It makes it clear that it is up to member states to decide for themselves when a public health emergency exists. A number of Ministers from developing countries made the point that the phrase "public health" crisis is not the right term to use given the fact that HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases are chronically prevalent in many developing countries. Those diseases represent the normal daily condition of public health; they are not what we would think of as an immediate crisis.
	I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman about the need to enable people in developing countries to trade their way out of poverty. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development and the UK Government have led the world in investing in capacity building in developing countries to enhance their chances not only of taking part in such negotiations but of benefiting from new opportunities for world trade. We can be proud of our achievements.
	The hon. Gentleman referred to the attitude of some UK and other western pressure groups towards the agreement. I certainly observed that, whatever the state of the draft declaration as it progressed on the various days in Doha, one of the NGOs represented there regarded anything that was being proposed as an insult to the world's poor. It seemed to have a word-processor that churned out press statements that had absolutely no regard for what was being proposed and agreed. We should pay a great deal less attention to groups like that and a great deal more attention to the Governments of developing countries. Representatives of the Governments of Tanzania, Brazil, Nigeria and many others got up in the final session at Doha yesterday to say what a good deal this was and how much progress had been made for their people and for those of other developing countries.

Tam Dalyell: Does my right hon. Friend recollect that when, with good parliamentary manners and good sense, she made her pre-Doha statement, I asked her about the problem of Mindanao in the Philippines, and particularly the Muslim community and its trade in the centre of Mindanao, in the light of the heavyweight Inter-Parliamentary Union Philippines delegation? Were any officials able to make contact at Doha on that genuine problem?

Patricia Hewitt: I am delighted to be able to tell my hon. Friend that not only my officials but I myself had two meetings with the Filipino Trade Minister, Manuel Roxas. We discussed the problem to which my hon. Friend refers, which is primarily a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development. I shall be drawing it to her attention so that we can see what help we can give.
	It was extremely helpful that my hon. Friend gave me advance notice of the problem in the Philippines because it turned out that there was a major issue for that country concerning access for its tuna products to European markets. Difficulties in resolving that issue very nearly unhinged the entire trade round negotiations. I was able to work with the European Commission in proposing an agreement to consult the Philippines on that problem. Its representatives were satisfied with that, and as a result, a potential block on agreement at Doha was avoided.

Vincent Cable: May I add my welcome for the statement—in particular, the Secretary of State's belief that a new round of trade liberalisation will be good for Britain, and the strong emphasis on the concerns of developing countries over access to western markets and intellectual property rights? But does she agree that we have been here before? The Uruguay round was launched with a similar flurry of good language, and developing countries in particular felt disillusioned, even betrayed, by the lack of implementation; it is implementation that is now essential. Confidence in implementation was not helped by the fact that in the key area of textiles, eight Republican Congressmen from the United States were allowed to emasculate the agreement.
	On agriculture, is the Secretary of State not embarrassed to have signed up to a form of words that has allowed the European Agriculture Commissioner this morning to crow that no reform of the common agricultural policy is now needed because negotiations will take place
	"without prejudice to the outcome"?
	Is that not one of many cases of British Ministers allowing themselves to be suckered into weak agreements on agricultural liberalisation?
	Following the comments of the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale), is the Secretary of State not also embarrassed by the tone of the remarks of the European Trade Commissioner, who made it very clear in his statements this week that his primary responsibility was to represent producer interests in France? If he cannot act on behalf of the EU as a whole, will the Government try to ensure that we have a Trade Commissioner who is more representative of the whole Community?

Patricia Hewitt: There is no doubt that one real difficulty in reaching agreement at Doha was the sense among so many developing countries that they had been sold a pup—betrayed—in the Uruguay round. What makes this round so different—I referred to this in my statement—is the effectiveness with which the developing countries, which after all represent more than two thirds of WTO membership, are working together, concerting their negotiating objectives and strategies. There is now a much greater basis of trust between the developing and developed countries, but there is also a very clear requirement for developed countries to meet the commitments that we made at Doha and to fulfil the expectations that we raised. If we do not do so, that trust will be destroyed.
	On agriculture, the declaration that we agreed yesterday states that of course there is no prejudging of the outcome of negotiations. We were agreeing the terms of reference of new trade negotiations; we were not seeking to have those negotiations at Doha. To say that we were not prejudging the outcome of those negotiations is merely a statement of the obvious.
	The negotiations will be about reductions in agricultural export subsidies, among other matters, with a view to their phasing out. That is very clear language. It was not only supported by all European Union member states but it has raised clear expectations in developing countries, where access to developed markets in agricultural products is essential to their farmers and all those who depend on them. We shall have to meet those expectations. That means that there is enormous pressure on the EU, added to the pressure from the prospects of enlargement, for radical reform of the CAP.
	I am not aware of any such comments being made by the Trade Commissioner. Not only over the past week but in preceding months, I have observed outstanding work from Commissioner Lamy in negotiating with immense skill and toughness on behalf of all EU members.

Tony Colman: I congratulate the Secretary of State and her ministerial colleagues on the successful outcome in Doha and join her in praising civil servants for their superb work there. On behalf of the very large number of representatives of United Kingdom non-governmental organisations in Doha, I thank the ministerial team for the daily briefings and the way in which the delegation listened to the detailed points made by NGOs. I believe that the UK was the only national delegation to offer such facilities to NGOs in Doha. What time scale will the Doha development round work to, and which issues does she believe that the round should prioritise? I suggest fairer trade for developing countries.

Patricia Hewitt: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments. The NGOs certainly played a very helpful role in almost every case in enabling us to achieve such a good outcome. Negotiations will begin early in the new year. There is a two-year time scale of preparatory work for the new issues—notably investment and competition—and, if I remember correctly, a five-year time scale for the negotiations themselves. I agree that the priority should be to deal with market access barriers and tariffs on both agricultural and industrial products and services, which are of particular importance to developing countries.

John Gummer: I thank the right hon. Lady for her statement and the access that she gave all of us in Doha. She not only talked to us but listened to us. Will she thank the Minister for the Environment, who was the only Environment Minister from the European Union to be present? He played an important part in pressing environmental issues. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is remarkable how many environmental issues were included in the statement, and that none of us expected to do as well? Is it not true that that is very much the result of the work of the EU, working as a united force, without which such agreement could not have been achieved? The commissioner concerned showed a steadfastness that very few of us expected. He, too, ought to be congratulated on his work.

Patricia Hewitt: The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; it was a pleasure to see him in Doha. I am very pleased that he singled out the breakthrough that we have made on of the environment. I believe that we would not have made such a breakthrough had it not been for the EU. We were the ones pressing for serious attention to be paid to environmental matters. The persistence of Commissioner Lamy on that matter was excellent. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman's remarks about the importance of the EU will be noted with great interest in the more Eurosceptic sections of his party.

Denzil Davies: Will my right hon. Friend say when negotiations on reducing export subsidies on agricultural products are likely to start, who will be negotiating on behalf of the United Kingdom and whether there is some deadline for them to end to prevent the French dragging them out ad infinitum?

Patricia Hewitt: In responding to my right hon. Friend's question, I shall correct a point that I made a minute ago. In fact, the declaration commits us to concluding negotiations by 1 January 2005. In other words, there is a three-year time scale for all the negotiations to which we signed up in the Doha agreement, including the negotiations on the reduction of agricultural tariffs and subsidies.

Andrew Lansley: I add my welcome for the positive outcome and the statement of the Secretary of State. Will she amplify the implications of phasing and the timetable? I understand that there is a commitment to a fifth WTO ministerial conference in 2003. I asked a question on investment and competition policy when the Secretary of State made a statement before the conference. The implication is that some of those matters will be prepared for the formal opening of negotiations at the fifth conference. Does that mean that there is a risk of some loss of linkage between those matters and, for example, the tightening of rules on anti-dumping measures and the reduction of industrial tariffs? Or will we be able to make sure that progress on one is directly linked to progress on investment and competition?

Patricia Hewitt: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. As I said earlier, we agreed that there will be two years of preparatory work on investment and competition. We have an enormous amount to do to ensure that all members of the WTO have a common understanding of the framework of investment and competition rules that is required, particularly to increase foreign direct investment in developing countries.
	That will take two years, then there will be a report to the fifth ministerial conference in 2003 with a view to opening negotiations on those matters, subject to consensus on the modality of negotiations, to use WTO-speak. As that preparatory work proceeds, we will need to ensure that it runs in parallel with, and is related to, work going on in the substantive negotiations themselves.

Harry Barnes: Clearly, developing nations need access to developed nations' markets. A great deal in my right hon. Friend's statement shows that that is under way; that is most welcome. What about the other side of the coin and the markets of underdeveloped nations? They often need protection to develop their own productive forces and may need to be in agreement with one another about, for example, the sale of primary products, which may be seen as anti-competitive according to certain arguments. Were the principles that I am propounding taken into account at the WTO conference?

Patricia Hewitt: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Running through our discussions and the declaration is a commitment to take into account the particular needs of developing countries including, above all, the least developed countries and small countries. The concerns of my hon. Friend will indeed be taken on board.

Christopher Chope: If the words "without prejudging the outcome" only state the obvious, why does the Secretary of State think that the French spent so much time insisting that they should be included in the final declaration? Does she believe that the French have committed themselves to phasing out farm subsidies?

Patricia Hewitt: I am really not here to answer for the French Government. All members of the European Union have signed up to the declaration.

Kali Mountford: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her statement, in which she mentioned 11 September and its impact on the talks. Given that that was the background music to the talks, is she confident that the agreements made on behalf of developing nations, particularly on the matters raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), will stick once the music fades and that we will see genuine improvements in trade so that countries can trade their way to a further economic base?

Patricia Hewitt: My hon. Friend makes an important point. The background of world events was uppermost in everybody's mind at Doha. I have no doubt at all that the events of 11 September and the conflict in Afghanistan made it easier, in a sense, to reach an agreement; there was even more understanding of the importance of doing so at the conference. I am certain that the agreement will stick, provided, as I said earlier, that the developed countries live up to the commitments that we made in the declarations. I know that the Government, for one, intend to do so.

Michael Weir: The Secretary of State will be aware that before the Doha meeting, Christian Aid and others called for a review of existing agreements prior to embarkation on another round. Clearly, that has not happened. Are any mechanisms in place to review the delivery of promised improvements to developing countries?
	Having said that, I warmly welcome the agreement on medical supplies in developing countries and congratulate the Secretary of State and Ministers on achieving it. It is only a partial agreement: there is no agreement on compulsory licensing in third countries, which may mean that developing countries without a drugs industry will be disadvantaged. Is the Secretary of State prepared to publish a detailed assessment of the agreement, particularly on TRIPS and key medicines, and say what efforts the United Kingdom Government will make to improve the situation?
	Finally, when the members of the delegation were listed, there was no mention of any member of the Scottish Executive. The Secretary of State gave a holding answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Perth (Annabelle Ewing) this morning, but can she now say whether any member of the Scottish Executive was part of the delegation?

Patricia Hewitt: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for at least some of his remarks. There was no representative of the Scottish Executive in the delegation: world trade is a reserved matter. As for the agreement on TRIPS and medical access to drugs, the declaration clarifies the meaning of TRIPS—the intellectual property agreement—and therefore the rules of the WTO to ensure that people in developing countries have access to the drugs that they need without compromising the incentives to pharmaceutical companies to invest in the research and development required for new drugs in future.
	There is, however, much else that needs to be done to deal with the appalling health situation in developing countries. Last week, I referred to the £1 billion investment that the Government have already made in the development of primary health care in developing countries and the $200 million that we have contributed to the global health fund, designed specifically to make those essential drugs affordable for people in developing countries. We have made an enormous advance on the matter raised by Christian Aid and the suggestion that there should be an assessment of achievements so far before entering new negotiations. However, that matter was not particularly raised by developing countries at the conference.

Oona King: Does my right hon. Friend agree that Doha represents a historic moment for developing countries because it is the first time that they have significantly shaped the global economy? Is not that because of the WTO, not in spite of it? On agriculture and the phasing out of export credits, will she push for the European Union to reduce its protectionist tendencies regarding the common agricultural policy, and is that more likely after the French elections?

Patricia Hewitt: My hon. Friend is right on both counts.

Martin Smyth: May I welcome the statement and the right hon. Lady's answer about the Philippines? It is a delight to hear that Chinese Taipei has been received into the WTO. Does she agree that the example that it has given both in helping developing countries and in the political sphere of a smooth transfer of power from one party to another last year is an example for many developing nations and others?
	Lest some of my constituents and others should be in touch with Members, perhaps having picked up from the media that the average home will be richer by £500, will the right hon. Lady explain where that money will go? I have a suspicion that the average home will not see it.

Patricia Hewitt: When I was in Doha, I had the pleasure of meeting the Trade Ministers both from China and from Chinese Taipei. I have no doubt that both will make an enormous contribution to the WTO. The accessions represent a real strengthening of the organisation. With the accession of China, we can for the first time regard the WTO as a truly global organisation.
	The benefits that will flow from trade liberalisation to families in Britain depend upon a successful outcome of the negotiation. It was once said that Britain was a nation of shopkeepers; it might be truer now to say that we are a nation of shoppers. All of us who shop, especially in supermarkets and markets, enjoy the benefits of world trade in the form of a wider choice of products and lower prices than would otherwise be the case. I have no doubt that as we enter into negotiations—it will be hard work—and as we bring them to a successful conclusion, we shall see significant benefits flowing through to British families and to British exporters.

Bill Tynan: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the agreement. It gives hope to many of my constituents who have been arguing for a long time that the circumstances of the poorest nations should be improved.
	I accept that the agreement is only a beginning. We must ensure that the developed nations carry it through and ensure that we create conditions which, like the coalition against terrorism that has created so much success in Afghanistan, enable the coalition for the fight against poverty to produce the same sort of result. If we do not do that, we shall be failing.
	TRIPS is an extremely important matter. I press my right hon. Friend on the progress that we can make to ensure that underdeveloped countries can enjoy freedom from a disease in the same way that an ordinary civilised society can. If she can give me an assurance on that, I shall be grateful.

Patricia Hewitt: I know that my hon. Friend has done a great deal of work with churches in his constituency on issues that directly concern developing countries. There was a clear sense at Doha, among us all, that security in the world must go hand in hand with the sharing of prosperity.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has already ensured that the UK Government are playing a significant role in spreading access to medicines in developing countries. This is only in part a matter of WTO rules on intellectual property. Nine out of 10 medicines on the World Health Organisation's essential medicines list are generic drugs and outside patent protection. Even if they were all free, there must be an infrastructure of primary health care in developing countries that can ensure that medicines are properly prescribed and delivered to those who need them. That is why the investment that the Government have been making and will continue to make in primary health care in developing countries is even more important than the agreement that we reached at Doha.

Chris Grayling: I welcome the progress that has been made, and support the comments made about the importance of the agreement in that it will lead to positive benefits in the developing world. I ask the Secretary of State to address in more detail the accession to membership of the Chinese. In the past, there have been considerable difficulties with China over trading, not least in the sphere of intellectual property. I would be interested to hear about the Chinese contribution at Doha, and how she feels now that trading and China will move forward in the context of this round.

Patricia Hewitt: As a new member whose accession was formalised at the WTO only this week, and which has not yet been ratified by China, China did not play a direct role in this week's proceedings. It was not part of the discussions. It was clear, certainly in the discussions that I had with the Chinese Trade Minister, that he and his colleagues recognised the enormous challenge to China in becoming a full member of the world trading community and in ensuring compliance with the rules of the WTO. Even more important, China recognises the enormous benefits that opening up to trade will bring, especially in seeking to spread prosperity between Shanghai, Beijing and other parts of the eastern seaboard across to the desperately poor rural areas of the western provinces.

Lindsay Hoyle: Has my right hon. Friend made any assessment of the plight of the people of Tibet, following China joining the WTO? Another factor to consider is the aggression that has always been shown to Chinese Taipei. With the two countries joining the WTO, perhaps an assessment has been made of relationships between the two. I am sure that she will work hard for countries outside the WTO to ascertain how we can encourage more countries to join in the next round of talks.

Patricia Hewitt: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. China will become a member country in 30 days now that the Doha agreement has been concluded. China and Chinese Taipei have had a long and difficult history. I made the point last week that after the second world war the central motive for the establishment of the European Union was the belief that close economic and trading links between countries were likely substantially to reduce the risk of violent conflict between them.
	My hon. Friend talked about encouraging other countries to join the WTO. There are 28 other candidates seeking accession to it. The critics of globalisation who regard the WTO as some sort of evil plot against developing countries should take stock of their views in the light of the Doha development agreement and recognise that, far from seeking to escape from the WTO, developing countries are joining it at a rapid rate. That is a good sign for the future of world security and prosperity.

Jonathan Djanogly: I certainly recognise the benefits and the positive things that happened at Doha. The Secretary of State referred to the creation of a free, fair and sustainable trade platform. Does that include the bilateral trade agreements that we have seen over recent weeks, particularly that conducted with Pakistan—which will be very detrimental to a section of the UK's trade—in the absence of any parliamentary discussion of the topic? Was the matter discussed at Doha?

Patricia Hewitt: The Doha declaration makes it very clear that there is a role for bilateral and indeed for regional trade agreements within the context of the multilateral agreements led by the WTO. There is a proposal from the European Commission for a bilateral agreement between the European Union and Pakistan on textiles, which are of course enormously important to that country. The United Kingdom Government have considered the agreement very carefully and we support it. We believe that it is absolutely right to recognise Pakistan's outstanding contribution to dealing with the terrorist threat from within Afghanistan.
	I have personally discussed the matter with the employers and the trade unions in the textile and clothing industry. As I said to them and am happy to confirm to the House, we shall continue to work with our textile and clothing industry to enable it to become more competitive and to specialise in sectors in which we still have competitive advantage. We have already made further changes to the help that we give our industry, to ensure that it can penetrate markets abroad.

Meg Munn: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be interested to hear that I recently participated in a simulation exercise with a number of school children on the issue of world trade and developing countries. Can she tell me and my constituents what benefit we derive from working with our European Union partners within the World Trade Organisation?

Patricia Hewitt: We derive enormous benefits from our membership of the European Union: half of our own trade is within the European Union. At Doha, we also saw the strength that we obtain as a member of that larger organisation, in securing a new world trade round that is good not only for Europe but for the developing countries of the world.

Norman Lamb: I welcome the Secretary of State's references to the importance of capacity building for developing countries. Will she say precisely what action she believes needs to be taken to ensure that developing countries can adequately represent themselves in the next round of talks? I am sure that she will agree that such action seems to be the key to ensuring that there is genuine and fair negotiation between the developing world and the rich northern nations.

Patricia Hewitt: The hon. Gentleman is right. The United Kingdom Government had already committed £15 million to capacity building in developing countries, and last week my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development announced a further £20 million of programmes. Talking in Doha to Ministers from developing countries, it was very clear that they are enormously pleased by that investment, which is helping them to train officials to take part in often very complex negotiations. I think that we saw this week at Doha very mature and increasingly sophisticated leadership from the developing countries, which, as I said, were able to concert their negotiating strategy in pursuit of their objectives. Consequently, we have achieved at Doha an agreement that is good not only for the developing countries but for us as well.

Points of Order

Peter Luff: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, of which I have given Mr. Speaker and the relevant Minister prior notice. I wish to address the manner in which the Government have announced a relaxation of the rules banning hunting in areas that are free from foot and mouth disease.
	Yesterday afternoon—Wednesday—I received from the Minister for Rural Affairs a substantive response to three questions from three hon. Members, including a question from me that had already received a holding reply. My copy appeared on the board after 6 pm. The answer clearly implied that it would be some time—I took that to mean at least a few days—before an announcement on the matter would be made. Driving home last night, however, I heard on the BBC Radio 4 10 o'clock news that an announcement would be made today, Thursday. That news came just four hours after I had received my answer. I believe that earlier bulletins carried similar reports although I did not hear them myself.
	The policy was confirmed in an interview with the Minister on this morning's "Today" programme. Indeed, I have now learned that a press conference to announce the decision was held this morning, and that invitations to that press conference were issued shortly after lunch time yesterday. Although the Minister tells me that he regrets the fact that the decision itself leaked, the fact remains that the outside world was being told a very different thing from the information given to hon. Members.
	Although my constituents will be pleased with the decision itself, I am left with the clear impression that the Government sought to avoid making the announcement to Parliament and indeed came perilously close to misleading the House. I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you will deplore the seriously incomplete statement made in answer to my question—the answer should have indicated that publication was due today—and accept that it is compelling evidence that the Government now routinely prefer to communicate their policy to the media rather than to the House.

James Gray: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Is it on the same topic?

James Gray: Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 25 October, I asked a parliamentary question on the very same subject—when the risk assessment would be published—and received a holding reply on 30 October. Although I have heard no more from the Minister since, on Monday morning, I was amazed to read in The Daily Telegraph an extensive briefing, which turns out to be extensively correct, on precisely what would happen when the risk assessment was received. I have still not received any response from the Minister to my perfectly legitimate question on the risk assessment. That seems to be clear evidence that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) has correctly said, the Government are more determined to spin the story in the press than to inform hon. Members. Is that not disgraceful?

Madam Deputy Speaker: Mr. Speaker has made inquiries about these matters and has authorised me to make the following observations on his behalf. I understand that copies of the papers published by the Minister this morning were placed in the Vote Office at 9.30 am today. As Mr. Speaker has told the House before, he deprecates the making of announcements of new policy to the media before the House has had an opportunity to be informed. In addition, in this case Mr. Speaker has asked me to say that he deplores the fact that Ministers did not take the opportunity when replying to written questions on the subject yesterday to indicate that an announcement was to be made today.

Chris Grayling: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. As you know, many of my colleagues see you and your colleagues in the Chair as the guardians of the interests of the House and of hon. Members, so I seek your guidance on how we should respond to questions of accuracy in relation to ministerial statements to the House.
	The House will be aware that on 5 November the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions made a statement to the House in which he made it clear that at a meeting on 25 July with the chairman of Railtrack, the chairman of Railtrack had sought extra financial assistance from the Government. However, in further comments in the Chamber on Monday and in specific evidence to the Transport Sub-Committee yesterday afternoon, the Secretary of State made it clear that no such request had in fact been made. In a case like this, where there is prima facie evidence at the very least that the Minister has made a misleading statement to the House, how should hon. Members such as myself respond?

Madam Deputy Speaker: That matter should really be directed to the Minister himself—

Eric Forth: Where is he?

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. There are ways in which the hon. Gentleman can pursue this matter and I am sure that he will be advised of those by his colleagues.

Orders of the Day
	 — 
	Marine Wildlife Conservation Bill [Money]

Queen's recommendation having been signified—

Michael Meacher: I beg to move,
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Marine Wildlife Conservation Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—
	(a) any expenditure incurred by a Minister of the Crown under the Act; and
	(b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.
	The money resolution concerns the private Member's Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall). On Second Reading, the Government indicated that they were content for the Bill to proceed into Committee and that was agreed by the House. As I outlined on Second Reading, the Government have great sympathy with the aims and objectives of the Bill and again I pay tribute to him for his choice of subject. I assure the House that, subject to suitable amendment, the Government are happy to allow it to proceed—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), who is all too willing to cavil before he has sight of the detail, would be well advised to hold his peace.
	The Bill's primary purpose is to establish a mechanism for the designation of marine sites of special scientific interest. As drafted, the Bill places obligations on the Government and the statutory conservation agencies—English Nature and the Countryside Council for Wales—to identify, designate and take account of such marine sites when authorising activities. That will have expenditure implications for the Treasury purse and therefore a money resolution is required.
	The main cost of the Bill will be placed on the statutory conservation agencies, because they will be responsible for identifying, managing and monitoring nationally important marine sites. Estimates indicate that the cost per site of establishing selection criteria, surveying, notification, consultation, drawing up a management scheme and monitoring will be in the region of £200,000. Of course, until criteria for site selection are devised, it is impossible to judge how many sites will be selected, but it is currently estimated that the total initial cost will be some £8 million over 10 years. Further costs will arise for those statutory authorities that are responsible for controlling and regulating activities in the marine environment. I commend the resolution to the House.
	Question put and agreed to.

Matters Sub Judice

Stephen Twigg: I beg to move,
	That the Resolutions of 23rd July 1963 and 28th June 1972 be rescinded and the following Resolution be made:
	That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, and to the right of the House to legislate on any matter or to discuss any delegated legislation, the House in all its proceedings (including proceedings of committees of the House) shall apply the following rules on matters sub judice:
	1. Cases in which proceedings are active in United Kingdom courts shall not be referred to in any motion, debate or question.
	(a)(i) Criminal proceedings are active when a charge has been made or a summons to appear has been issued, or, in Scotland, a warrant to cite has been granted.
	(ii) Criminal proceedings cease to be active when they are concluded by verdict and sentence or discontinuance, or, in cases dealt with by courts martial, after the conclusion of the mandatory post-trial review.
	(b)(i) Civil proceedings are active when arrangements for the hearing, such as setting down a case for trial, have been made, until the proceedings are ended by judgment or discontinuance.
	(ii) Any application made in or for the purposes of any civil proceedings shall be treated as a distinct proceeding.
	(c) appellate proceedings, whether criminal or civil, are active from the time when they are commenced by application for leave to appeal or by notice of appeal until ended by judgment or discontinuance.
	But where a ministerial decision is in question, or in the opinion of the Chair a case concerns issues of national importance such as the economy, public order or the essential services, reference to the issues or the case may be made in motions, debates or questions.
	2. Specific matters which the House has expressly referred to any judicial body for decision and report shall not be referred to in any motion, debate or question from the time when the Resolution of the House is passed until the report is laid before the House.
	3. For the purposes of this Resolution—
	(a) Matters before Coroners Courts or Fatal Accident Inquiries shall be treated as matters within paragraph 1(a);
	(b) 'Motion' includes a motion for leave to bring in a bill; and
	(c) 'Question' includes a supplementary question.
	The motion stems from the report in the previous Parliament of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, one of whose members, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), is in his place. The Joint Committee was chaired by Lord Nicholls and was set up to review parliamentary privilege and to make recommendations. Parliamentary privilege is important, and should be used well. I am grateful to all those, both in this House and the other place, who served on the Joint Committee, and the many distinguished witnesses who assisted in its work.
	The Joint Committee addressed free speech in Parliament as part of its inquiry. It noted that freedom of speech
	"is the single most important parliamentary privilege".
	I am sure that we all agree with that. Members may wish to note that the Joint Committee recommended that there should be no action to limit parliamentary freedom of speech in respect of court injunctions, or in respect of the Official Secrets Acts. Those rights remain absolute, and the good sense of Members of Parliament will continue as the best guard against their misuse.
	The Joint Committee also looked at the sub judice rule and recommended that the sub judice resolutions of both Houses of Parliament should be brought up to date, and into line with one another. The House of Lords has already implemented the Joint Committee's recommendation and I now invite this House to do the same. I stress that the new motion does not significantly alter the rules on sub judice. Before I turn to the motion itself, it might be helpful if I remind the House of the reason for the sub judice rule.
	A fundamental feature of our constitution is that Parliament and the courts each keep to their appropriate functions. It is for Parliament to make the law; it is for the courts to interpret it. Article 9 of the Bill of Rights provides
	"That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament."
	Rightly, we have absolute privilege for anything that we say in Parliament. The courts cannot interfere with what we say or do in the course of proceedings in Parliament.
	That absolute privilege must not be abused, and the sub judice rule is a means to prevent abuse. As the Joint Committee said,
	"the rule provides that matters awaiting adjudication in a court of law should not be brought forward on motions, debates, questions or supplementary questions."
	The rule is not absolute. As the Joint Committee said, it tries
	"to strike a balance between two sets of principles. On the one hand, the rights of parties in legal proceedings should not be prejudiced by discussion of their case in Parliament, and Parliament should not prevent the courts from exercising their functions. On the other hand, Parliament has a constitutional right to discuss any matters it pleases."
	The sub judice rule is necessary not only to preserve proper relations between courts and Parliament, but to ensure that trials are not prejudiced by parliamentary comment. I acknowledge that it can be frustrating for Members when the sub judice rule restricts comment in this House more stringently than comment in the media, but that is unavoidable. Media comment is constrained by the Contempt of Court Act 1981 and if such comment oversteps the mark, legal action can be taken.
	Article 9 of the Bill of Rights gives us absolute protection in this House, and that should make us cautious about what we say in this place. Moreover, as the Joint Committee said,
	"it is important constitutionally, and essential for public confidence, that the judiciary should be seen to be independent of political pressures".
	However, we should not limit parliamentary debate more than necessary, and there are three important provisions in the motion that stop the sub judice rule doing so.
	The first is that the application of the rule is
	"subject to the discretion of the Chair".
	As the Joint Committee said,
	"the key to the successful operation of the sub judice rule over the years in the House of Commons has been the sensitive use by the Speaker of discretionary powers."
	Successive occupants of the Chair have had to grapple with the application of the rules in often difficult and delicate circumstances, and have demonstrated the importance of having a rule that does not seek to anticipate every situation that may arise but leaves considerable discretion to the Chair. This new rule would, of course, preserve that discretion.
	Secondly, the House remains free to legislate on any matter. When it appears that the law needs changing, the sub judice rule does not prevent us from making changes even as cases go through the courts.
	Thirdly, the rule does not apply to cases in which a ministerial decision is in question in the courts—that is, where a decision is being judicially reviewed. In fact, the new sub judice rule will relax the practice of the Commons on this matter and bring us into line with the more permissive rule that has applied in the Lords.
	The existing rules refer to decisions that
	"cannot be challenged in court except on grounds of misdirection or bad faith, or concern issues of national importance such as the national economy, public order or the essentials of life".
	The new proposal has no such restrictions, and that must be right. The purpose of the sub judice rule is to protect the courts from parliamentary interference; it is not to provide Ministers with a convenient protection against questioning in the House. I commend this substantive alteration to the House.
	The other alterations to the sub judice rules recommended by the Joint Committee are technical rather than substantive. First, it cannot be right to have the rules contained in two resolutions, rather than one, or to have different rules in one House of Parliament from those that apply in the other. That is rectified by the proposal before the House.
	Secondly, although it is accepted that the sub judice rule applies to Select Committees, in the past that has not been clearly stated. It will now be explicit that the application is also to the Committees of the House.
	Thirdly, changes to court practice mean that many of the references to specific courts in the existing rules are out of date, and need to be changed. The redrafted rules do that.
	I hope that the House will agree to follow the Lords and adopt this updated and comprehensive sub judice rule.

Eric Forth: My guess as I look around the Chamber is that the Minister is likely to get approval for the motion, although we shall have to wait and see. I have no doubt that the debate will be tense, exciting and thrill-packed. That is the way of the House.
	I welcome the motion, and I especially welcome the fact that, as the Minister noted, in this matter we are following the lead given by the other place. There is a tendency these days to assert over and over again what is known in the parlance as the "primacy of the Commons". However, every now and then we get examples of how the House of Lords can take a lead, and this is one such. I am happy to follow the Minister's recommendation that we follow the lead given by their Lordships.
	I also welcome what I would describe as the saving provisions in the motion, to which the Minister drew attention, and I welcome especially the one that refers to the "discretion of the Chair". Although we must update the provisions relating to sub judice matters, it is also important that we reassert the ultimate provision that the House, through the Chair in this case, has the last word on such matters. In that way we can rightly set out the normal rules and provisions, but with that very important discretion retained for the Chair.
	Mention was made of the reference to where a ministerial decision is in question or, in the opinion of the Chair, a case concerns issues of national importance such as the economy, public order or the essential services. That is particularly relevant in the current circumstances, but it will always be reassuring to know that where there is an overriding requirement, the thrust of the motion may be set aside.
	With those brief comments, I am more than happy to recommend to the massed ranks of hon. Members that we accept the motion.

Ross Cranston: I support the motion because it relaxes the sub judice rule and tidies it up somewhat. Also, as the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) said, it brings the rules of the two Houses into line.
	I underline my hon. Friend the Minister's point that the rule has important constitutional significance. It is important because, as he said, sometimes the House is frustrated by the impediments to discussion that the rule places on us. During the Pinochet case, hon. Members were frustrated because every person and his dog outside the House were commenting on it, but the rule, and Madam Speaker's specific ruling, meant that there could be no comment here. The constitutional foundation of the rule is important because it directs attention to cases where the application of the rule is justified and, conversely, where it might be wrongly invoked to stifle debate.
	The constitutional foundation is, as the Minister said, the principle of the independence of the judiciary. That means basically that judges have to be in a position where they can make decisions in accordance with the law and not because they are swayed, suborned or intimidated by Government or Parliament. Only thus can the courts act to ensure that the decisions and actions of the other two arms of government, as they affect individuals, are in accordance with the law.
	We have only to look at the situation in places such as Zimbabwe to see how the independence of the judiciary can be compromised, with the result that individual rights are negated and lawlessness encouraged. There are various protections for the independence of the higher judiciary, such as the legislative guarantee dating back to the Act of Settlement of 1701 that they hold office during good behaviour, subject to removal by an address by both Houses.
	Among the other contributions that this House makes to the independence of the judiciary is the sub judice rule. It recognises, as the Lord Chief Justice has said, the mutuality of respect between two constitutional sovereignties. For example, as the Minister said, the courts respect parliamentary privilege and, conversely, we ensure, by our procedural rules, respect for the proceedings of the courts within their own sphere. Paragraph 192 of the excellent report of the Joint Committee gives the justification for the rule very clearly.
	There is no need to canvass the motion; it updates and rationalises the rules in this and the other House. I shall make only one point. The operation of the rule in the House is always subject to the overriding discretion of the Speaker, a point made by the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst. With respect, the Speaker and his predecessors have always received and accepted sound advice on the operation of the rule from those who advise them. There is an important balance to be struck between the right of debate in the House on matters of public concern and the respect that we must accord judges. Sometimes, that demands a restraint on our debate, although the debate might fall permissibly within the express terms of the rule.
	Conversely, the rule must not be used to stifle debate. As I pointed out, I have no quarrel with—indeed, only praise for—the way that the rule has been administered by successive Speakers. However, a casual perusal of Hansard suggests that there might occasionally have been instances when Ministers do not seem to have taken the Speaker's advice and have sought to invoke the rule to close down debate, on the basis of a misunderstanding of the rule. That is wrong, especially given the change in the rule that recognises that matters can always be subject to debate where ministerial decision is involved and where simultaneously there is a judicial review. Ministers have to be encouraged to take advice on the application of the rule and to follow it.
	I support the motion. It will update the rules and it is a thoroughly soundly based constitutional provision.

Paul Tyler: As the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office said, I served on the Joint Committee for about 18 months. It frightened the life out of me, because almost all the other members of the Committee held some sort of qualification. I mean no disrespect to the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston) when I point out that now that we have fewer lawyers in the House, we probably do a better job. However, on occasions such as this, we need that legal advice and I want to follow up the point that he has just made.
	In the past, Ministers have all too often hidden behind an alleged, possible sub judice restriction to avoid difficult questions, and have not taken direct legal advice from the Chair or the Clerks. Most of us do not have that legal expertise, so in future, now that we have clarification and codification between both Houses, I hope that the situation will be slightly clearer, both for lay Members and for those learned Members who have greater expertise. As a result, I hope that Ministers will not be able to get away with some of the excuses that they made in past.
	As the Minister said, although this subject is fascinating only to an elite and intelligent minority, it is important. It is all about the relationship between Parliament and the judiciary. The Minister spelt that out extremely well. However, some elements of the situation remain complex, despite the helpful clarification; for example, most laymen find the whole issue of judicial review complicated.
	One of the things that the motion will deal with was not mentioned by the Minister: under the new rule, once a pre-trial issue has been settled, the sub judice rule will be lifted until that case becomes active again. That is the sort of minefield that some of us might stray into—we might not be sure where we are in that process. I hope that that piece of advice will be heavily underlined for the benefit of the Minister's colleagues.
	We should examine the relevant responsibilities in our handling of these matters and their handling by the media—a point that has already been made. After all, the media are the media; they are not part of our constitution. I hope that it is still true not only that the courts, but the public at large, take a little more notice of what the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) says than of leaders in The Sun. I am not sure about that, but I hope that they do. We must be a little more careful than the editors of national and local newspapers or the editors and producers of television programmes.
	The fact remains that Parliament has the privilege of defending the rights of our constituents. That is not a privilege that we exercise on our own behalf; it is to defend the right of our constituents to be heard and to have their concerns aired in this place—with much greater freedom than out on the street or, indeed, in the television studio. I hope that we can still endorse and support that self-discipline because it is important.
	Of course, it is important that the independence of the judiciary is recognised. That, too is an important feature of the motion. However, my anxiety is that sometimes ignorance is treated as bliss, and I think that occasionally Back-Bench Members in the House, and Ministers, may push their luck with a sub judice example. After all, the word can pop out and the reference can be made before the Chair has an opportunity to discuss matters with the learned Clerks, let alone with Speaker's Counsel. It is incumbent on us, if we believe that we may be running into trouble, to try to take advice in advance of making a comment, whether it be in Committee—the Minister rightly referred to the fact that the rule will now apply explicitly in Committee where it was implicit before—or in the Chamber.
	However, we must also look at the matter the other way round. Members or Ministers must not be over-zealous in this matter to the extent that we do not have a free Parliament discussing issues that we are free to discuss. My anxiety is that we get that balance right.
	I recall that evidence was given to the Joint Committee that the Speaker—and, through the Speaker, the Speaker's Counsel—was available to give advice. My worry is that perhaps, in a borderline case, most of us will take the view that it is better to try our luck than to take what may be very cautious—dare I say it, very conservative—legal advice. Although I accept that ignorance is no defence in those circumstances, I would hope that, in a borderline case, we do not find that the legal advice that we are given is so absurdly over-cautious that Parliament is prevented from doing its proper job.

Gerald Howarth: I am delighted to take part in what, I concur with the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), is a very important debate, even though there are not very many of us in the House. The issue goes to the heart of our constitution and the constitutional position of the House in our arrangements, but I shall be brief because I agree with everything that I have heard so far.
	I apologise to the Minister for not hearing his opening remarks from a Bench in the Chamber. I did have the benefit of seeing him make them on the television in my room before I came to the Chamber.

Eric Forth: My hon. Friend is not supposed to say that.

Gerald Howarth: My right hon. Friend may say that, but, having voted assiduously against televising the House, I must say that I am now taking advantage of it.
	As the hon. Member for North Cornwall mentioned, the Bill of Rights of 1688 was a very important constitutional measure and it is as valid today as it was in 1688. Parliament fought hard against the Crown to establish its right to be free from any kind of oppression from the Crown to express its view, and to ensure that Members themselves should be free, not on their own behalf but on behalf of their constituents and others, to make a case free from the fear of being oppressed by the Crown or—even worse—locked up or jailed. We should be conscious of that privilege, which was won so hard so many years ago, but we must also be conscious of the need to exercise if responsibly. That is the gist of the Minister's case.
	I hope that we have achieved the right balance in the motion before us. It is important that we ensure that there is a separation of powers, and that we ensure that the courts have freedom to interpret the legislation as passed by Parliament—although I must say that I am becoming increasingly alarmed at the way in which the judges are becoming politicised and seeking in too many cases to usurp the duties and responsibilities of Parliament to make the law, by seeking to stretch their interpretation to such an extent that they are almost defying the will of Parliament. However, that is a bigger argument than that with which we are faced today, so I shall not proceed too far down that avenue, except to say that I think that it is not simply a question of being purist about the right of the courts to determine issues without Parliament being in contempt of the courts by raising those issues which could not be raised otherwise.
	On the point about Ministers trying to hide behind the sub judice rule, I saw the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office nodding earlier to show that he is of the view that Ministers should not seek that refuge.
	The hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston) was right to allude to the Pinochet case as being a good example of the difficulties that the House has faced and that we want to resolve. It was absurd that all the newspapers were discussing that case, it was being discussed on television and radio—everyone was talking about it—and that this House was the only place that was not allowed to discuss it.
	The Home Secretary had finally to make a judgment. I am entirely happy about the exercise of that discretion. It should not have been left to the courts; it was an issue of national importance in which leaving it to the discretion of an elected Minister of the Crown was the right way to proceed. However, it was nonsense that we could not question the Home Secretary, who was to make the final decision, when all the newspapers and everyone else were making their representations to him.
	The compromise reached, which is that
	"where a ministerial decision is in question, or in the opinion of the Chair a case concerns issues of national importance such as the economy, public order or essential services, reference to the issues or the case may be made in motions, debates or questions",
	is the right way to proceed.
	Since the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North raised this matter on behalf of the Labour party, as did the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) on behalf of the Liberal Democrat party, perhaps I can do so on behalf of the Conservative party, so that we have a united front in declaring to the Chair that we wish to place it firmly on the record that it is the view of the House as assembled here today—given the massive number of Members present—that we hope and expect the Chair to be robust in interpreting this resolution in favour of the House so that it has an opportunity to debate issues in the manner set out in the motion. If there is an area of doubt, I hope that the Chair will err on the side of the House rather than that of caution.

Stephen Twigg: As the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) implied from the Conservative Front Bench, I am getting used to these debates of great national importance and to crossing swords with him and other hon. Members on these matters. I assure the House that on the doorsteps of Enfield, Southgate in June no more important issue came up than the changes to the sub judice rule. Perhaps that is reflected in the turnout here this afternoon. I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House for their constructive contributions to our short debate.
	When I was asked to propose this motion today, I had a similar sense of trepidation to that described by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler)—that we would have a debate full of lawyers. In fact, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston) was the only lawyer to speak and he made a useful and constructive contribution. I do not intend to cover ground that was covered in my opening remarks. I simply thank all hon. Members for their support.
	I very much agree with the hon. Member for North Cornwall, who spoke for the Liberal Democrats, that we are seeking greater clarity and also balance. That is important and it is also central to the matter. I also agree with the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) that there is real concern about the balance being right and the fact that sometimes it is not. I will not be tempted to take the route that he was not tempted by, but we want a proper separation of powers and a proper understanding on the part of the judiciary as well as here in Parliament about the roles that we have under our constitutional arrangements.
	I am sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you heard what the hon. Gentleman said. I can reiterate that there is clearly cross-party support for a strong and robust stance from the Chair, both in the Chamber and in Committees. I am pleased that we have such broad and strong support for this proposed change and, therefore, I commend it to the House.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That the Resolutions of 23rd July 1963 and 28th June 1972 be rescinded and the following Resolution be made:
	That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, and to the right of the House to legislate on any matter or to discuss any delegated legislation, the House in all its proceedings (including proceedings of committees of the House) shall apply the following rules on matters sub judice:
	1. Cases in which proceedings are active in United Kingdom courts shall not be referred to in any motion, debate or question.
	(a)(i) Criminal proceedings are active when a charge has been made or a summons to appear has been issued, or, in Scotland, a warrant to cite has been granted.
	(ii) Criminal proceedings cease to be active when they are concluded by verdict and sentence or discontinuance, or, in cases dealt with by courts martial, after the conclusion of the mandatory post-trial review.
	(b)(i) Civil proceedings are active when arrangements for the hearing, such as setting down a case for trial, have been made, until the proceedings are ended by judgment or discontinuance.
	(ii) Any application made in or for the purposes of any civil proceedings shall be treated as a distinct proceeding.
	(c) appellate proceedings, whether criminal or civil, are active from the time when they are commenced by application for leave to appeal or by notice of appeal until ended by judgment or discontinuance.
	But where a ministerial decision is in question, or in the opinion of the Chair a case concerns issues of national importance such as the economy, public order or the essential services, reference to the issues or the case may be made in motions, debates or questions.
	2. Specific matters which the House has expressly referred to any judicial body for decision and report shall not be referred to in any motion, debate or question from the time when the Resolution of the House is passed until the report is laid before the House.
	3. For the purposes of this Resolution—
	(a) Matters before Coroners Courts or Fatal Accident Inquiries shall be treated as matters within paragraph 1(a);
	(b) 'Motion' includes a motion for leave to bring in a bill; and
	(c) 'Question' includes a supplementary question.

Human Rights (Joint Committee)

Stephen Twigg: I beg to move,
	That Standing Order No.152B (Human Rights (Joint Committee)) be amended, as follows:
	Line 40, at end insert the words ", except that for the purposes of taking evidence, the quorum shall be two".
	I hope that the motion is self-explanatory. We set up the Joint Committee on Human Rights, as we explicitly said, on the lines of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, which had a membership of six from each House and a quorum of three from each House, making a total quorum of six. Under the motion, that quorum will be reduced to two, for the purpose of evidence taking only. I understand that a similar change is likely to be made in another place.

Eric Forth: Why?

Stephen Twigg: The motion has been tabled in response to representations from the Chairman of the Committee on the basis that it will assist the Committee in its work. It is a new Committee, and I hope that the House will support it and agree to its Chairman's request. On that basis, I move the motion.

Eric Forth: I am more than a little disappointed at the what the Minister has said. Simply to say that the Committee Chairman wants fewer people to attend its sittings so that it can do its work does not seem remotely satisfactory. In fact, I am rather suspicious about this. In any case, I have suspicions about the concept of a bifurcated quorum. That is probably a bad way to do things, and we should not encourage it.
	Generally speaking, any Committee should do its work with the maximum number of its members available. In fact, if we were to divide the House right now to test its opinion on the motion, 40 hon. Members would need to be present. I wonder whether the Government would like that to happen or whether they would feel confident about it.

Edward Garnier: My right hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong, but I cannot see the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Bristol, East (Jean Corston), in the Chamber. It might have been polite if she had been available to explain her request to the Government.

Eric Forth: I agree with my hon. and learned Friend. Not only would it have been a courtesy, but if the Chairman had bothered to turn up to make the case that the Minister has tried valiantly to make, the House might have been convinced. Perhaps understandably, he has failed to be his usual persuasive self. Perhaps he assumed that the Chairman would turn up and explain why she thought that we should agree to this extraordinary motion. As I have said, I am uneasy about the idea of having two quorums for different aspects of the Committee's business. That, in itself, requires some explanation.
	Ah, the Chairman of the Committee is now in the Chamber; I welcome her to the debate. Unfortunately, the rules of procedure do not allow me to resume my seat, listen to what she has to say and then make my speech appropriately, so I will have to deliver the rest of my speech on an entirely speculative basis, wondering what on earth she will say to persuade the House why she thinks not only that the Committee needs a quorum of two, but that it can legitimately conduct its business on that basis.
	I clearly recall our being told when the Committee was set up how extraordinarily important it would be, what extraordinarily important work it would do and that hon. Members would very much welcome its deliberations. Some hon. Members—I was not one of them—swallowed that argument hook, line and sinker. Now, according to the Minister, the Chairman thinks that the Committee's work is so vital that, occasionally, only two of its members may be around to conduct its business.
	I suspect that that says much about the Committee and, regrettably, about the attitude that is increasingly prevailent among some hon. Members about how seriously they are prepared to take the work of Committees and the House.

Gerald Howarth: Is not my right hon. Friend puzzled that the Government are seeking to do this at a time when they have had to tear up part of the Human Rights Act 1998, which came into force only last year? It is somewhat of an insult to suggest that on this important matter, when the Government have had to renounce measures implemented as recently as last year, only two people will be able to consider the evidence—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Some of the hon. Gentleman's remarks are outside the terms of the motion.

Eric Forth: I am cognisant of the points that my hon. Friend makes. I am not entirely sure that the Minister presented his case with his normal oomph and enthusiasm. He may have been technically relaying what he thought the Chairman had thought so that the House could consider the matter. We must now wait with bated breath to hear the Chairman explain how the Committee, allegedly important as it and its work is, cannot muster not only its full membership for the deliberation of its business but even a normal quorum of three.

Stephen Twigg: I apologise if I was insufficiently enthusiastic in presenting the proposal to the House. Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that it does not mean that we would have a Joint Committee with only two people taking evidence? It would be two Members from the House of Commons, with a similar change being made in the other place. Will the right hon. Gentleman also acknowledge that this is a narrow and focused proposal that does not cover the full range of the Committee's work, but applies simply to the evidence- taking part?

Eric Forth: I am grateful to the Minister, and of course I accept what he says. He is saying that as many as four out of the membership of 12 might participate in the work of the Committee. I expect that he means me to be impressed by that. Regrettably, it does not impress me at all. This rather sums up the attitude of all too many hon. Members. We seem to have arrived at a position that is redolent of what is prevalent on the Labour Benches. You would not allow me, Madam Deputy Speaker, to divert myself into the issue of counselling Members, whether attending Committees or not, and how the delicacy of Labour Members has to be looked after, not least by the Chairman of the Committee. You can be assured, that I will not elaborate on those points.

Kevin McNamara: rose—

Eric Forth: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not tempt me to do so.

Kevin McNamara: I would never do that.

Eric Forth: On that understanding, I give way.

Kevin McNamara: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the difficulties that we have had is that a Conservative Member is yet to be nominated to the Committee? What is the percentage of Members required for a quorum on other Committees?

Eric Forth: I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that, happily, there is a motion on the Order Paper this very day nominating my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) for membership of this Committee.

Kevin McNamara: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, but he is not answering my question. We are now in November and the Committee has not had a Conservative representative. The very important legislation to which the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) referred was discussed without any Conservative Member being present.

Eric Forth: That is a matter for my colleagues to consider. Perhaps it reflects the lack of interest in the Committee, not only on Conservative Benches but, because of the nature of the resolutions before us, more generally. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman's comments accurately reflect the value that the House places on the Committee. If it is expected that we can muster only two out of six Members of this House to do the Committee's allegedly very important work, we can draw our own conclusions.

Kevin McNamara: rose—

Eric Forth: If the hon. Gentleman wants to keep worrying away at the point, I will indulge him.

Kevin McNamara: I will worry away at it, because I would not like it to appear that my colleagues on the Committee from this House have been found wanting in any way, when this is really to do with the other place.

Eric Forth: I will certainly not be drawn into casting aspersions on Members of another place; I will leave that to the hon. Gentleman.
	My point, and I shall stick to it narrowly because it is important, concerns the attitude behind the motion, which is that we must anticipate that fewer and fewer Members of the House will turn up to do the work of Committees.

Edward Garnier: It may well be that between now and Monday, when a derogation from the European convention on human rights is to be discussed, the Chairman intends to hold a meeting of her Committee so that, with the three other members who will be needed to form the quorum, she can take evidence on that derogation.

Jean Corston: We did that last night.

Edward Garnier: The hon. Lady says that she took evidence last night. No doubt she will publish that evidence before we discuss the matter on Monday. My right hon. Friend may find that information helpful in alleviating his concern.

Eric Forth: That may be the case. I would be even more impressed if the Committee were to deprecate the fact that on Monday evening the matter will be dealt with by the ghastly deferred Division process. I hope that the Committee is prepared to express strong views about that, and I await the moment, but I will believe it when I see it.
	I return to the point at issue. Why does it now appear that a very important Joint Committee of this House and another place should have a reduced quorum? I have no doubt that the Chairman will seek to persuade us that she is so lacking in confidence about her very important Committee, which deals with very important matters, that she wants to provide for the possibility that only two people may be available to take evidence.
	Worse, we are to have this peculiar bifurcated quorum, which means that although two people may be present to take evidence, three will be needed to make a substantive decision. As with deferred Divisions, the people who sat and listened to the evidence may be rather different from those who will vote on the matter for which the evidence was taken. The whole business is starting to become not only bizarre but rather unsatisfactory. Unless the Chairman comes up with some convincing answers, I doubt that the House will be very happy with the proposal.
	I suspect that Government Members thought that the House would give a casual nod and wink to the motion in conspiratorial acceptance of the idea that fewer and fewer of us need turn up to do any of our business. Of course, that is very much the attitude of many Labour Members, as we know from their words and their behaviour, and that is very much to be regretted. However, in this case there may be special considerations that I have been unable to anticipate, so I look forward with more than usual relish to what the Chairman of the Committee now has to say.

Jean Corston: I apologise for not being in the Chamber at the start of the debate. You will no doubt be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that there was a meeting of the Liaison Committee, and I had expected this business to be taken a little later.
	I take full responsibility for the motion, which is in my name as I have the privilege of chairing the Joint Committee on Human Rights. As its name implies, it is a Joint Committee of both Houses. It is rather unusual in that it has an equal number of members from the Government and the Opposition—six of each—and an equal number from each of the two Houses, six MPs and six Lords. No doubt my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) is, like me, delighted that at long last we will be joined by a Conservative Member of the Commons. The absence of such a Member has been noted.
	The Committee is unusual also in that its quorum is 50 per cent. of the membership.

Eric Forth: Good.

Jean Corston: I have never yet heard the right hon. Gentleman or any other Conservative Member complain about the fact that the normal quorum for a Select Committee is three out of 11 members, which is far lower than what I am proposing on behalf of the Committee.
	There is another reason why the quorum is appropriate. Members of the House of Commons should be here to attend a Select Committee meeting whenever the House is sitting or during the recess. However, many of our colleagues on the Joint Committee who are from the other place have outside jobs and interests. We have a civil service commissioner, the deputy chairman of the Independent Television Commission, a lawyer and a university lecturer.

Michael Jabez Foster: Is that not also a problem with Conservative Members of this House who do not always turn up because they are somewhere else doing something else?

Jean Corston: That may well be the case. Attempts were made through the usual channels to ensure that Conservatives were represented on the Committee. They had the opportunity from June onwards to contribute to the Committee when, as the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) said, we dealt with legislation of the most fundamental importance in terms of human rights and the emergency situation. It has been a great failing on the part of the Conservatives that not one of their Members from this place was present.

Edward Garnier: Having criticised the hon. Lady, I of course, fully accept her apology and explanation for not being present at the outset of the debate.
	The hon. Lady is confusing me slightly. I was under the impression—it may be my fault for being obtuse—that we were discussing the quorum of Members from this House, not of the overall Committee. The fact that we are reducing the quorum to two is a reference to membership from this House alone. She may well be misleading herself and not doing her case justice by making such wide-ranging attacks when dealing with this narrow issue.

Jean Corston: I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for that comment. It is true that I am proposing two members out of six for the Commons quorum, which is a third.

Edward Garnier: On that basis, the hon. Lady's remarks about noble Lords being members of other bodies—civil service commissioners or whatever—are beside the point. It is interesting, but not relevant.

Jean Corston: It is entirely relevant because a Joint Committee by its very name and nature must have an equal number of members from each House. If two Lords members are to serve as a quorum, there should be two Commons members, and vice versa. That has been the basis of the reasoning. For understandable reasons, such as academic or court commitments, Lords members have found it difficult to be present at the beginning of a meeting or during the deliberations. That makes it difficult for the Committee to function if it is examining a Minister in an evidence-taking session—that has happened.
	I am not suggesting that members from the other place do not do their best to be diligent in their attendance. There are two Conservative members from the other place, one of whom, as the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst may know, is the head of an Oxford college who finds it difficult to attend a meeting if it is held at an extraordinary time. A quorum of a third of each House is reasonable and, indeed, higher than in Select Committees in the House of Commons, which require a quorum of three members out of 11. I am proposing two out of six.

Eric Forth: The hon. Lady may not know—there is no reason why she should—that I raised the issue of inadequate quorums regularly in the context of these very debates in a previous incarnation on the Floor of the House. It has concerned me for some time, so I am being reasonably consistent.
	For the hon. Lady to say that Members of another place are very busy people with important outside work to do and that we must understand why they cannot make it to meetings of an important Committee is simply not good enough. Committee members—whether Lords or not—should not accept the commitment of being on the Committee if they are regularly too busy to attend. That is not an acceptable excuse. Lords or not, Committee members should take responsibility for reviewing their commitments and making appropriate adjustments rather than asking us to reduce quorums to accommodate people with other priorities.

Jean Corston: I always find that trying to debate with the right hon. Gentleman is like trying to stir a bucket of treacle with a matchstick. It is entirely pointless. I merely make the sensible point that to insist on a quorum of 50 per cent. of the membership of this Committee—which is unlike any other Committee in this House or the other place—would be to place too great a burden on the Committee. For example, if one or two people were unwell, it would be difficult to hold an evidence-taking session with a Minister or with anyone else from whom we might want to hear evidence in public.
	All the members of the Committee—Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour—are of the same mind. Our Committee has functioned well. In the short time that we have existed, we have published reports on legislation, such as the Bill that became the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, and we are in the course of producing a report in what might be record time on the emergency legislation that the House will consider next week. We are proud of our record. However, we do not want to be placed in a position where, not for reasons of sloth or lack of interest, we cannot function. 3.11 pm

Paul Tyler: I have great respect for the hon. Member for Bristol, East (Jean Corston), who is the Chairman of the Committee. However, I am now more confused than I was at the beginning of the debate.
	As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) pointed out, the number of Lords necessary to form a quorum on their side is irrelevant to this debate. As far as I know, nothing is written down to suggest that the quorum from the two Houses in a Joint Committee has to be identical. That point is taken care of at the outset.
	The original proposal was to reduce the quorum for all the Committee's sittings, and not just the evidence-taking sessions. That would have been even worse, but we could try to reach a sensible conclusion that means that the quorum for all sittings is the same. All Select Committees often move straight from taking evidence into a deliberative session because that is a good way of ensuring that the points raised by the witnesses are immediately addressed. One would assume that the same quorum would be appropriate for both types of session.
	The Joint Committee is very important. In the previous Parliament, I spent much time trying to persuade the then Leader of the House to appoint the Committee. The Government had committed themselves to doing that, but its appointment was long delayed. Given the fact that the Committee represents both Houses, I also argued that its numbers should not be restricted to 12. That would have sorted the problem out. If my suggestion of 18 members had been accepted, it would have ensured a reasonable spread of representation from both Houses, and the problem of small quorums would not have arisen.
	Another problem has been mentioned in the debate. It was felt necessary that a Government Back Bencher should chair the Committee, so that the Government would have a majority if a decision came to a casting vote. That is true when the Committee has 12 members, but it would not follow if my suggestion had been accepted. The hon. Lady does not seem to agree, but I assure her that the negotiations that I had with the then Chief Whip took place on that basis.

Jean Corston: I inform the hon. Gentleman that there is no casting vote in the Committee.

Paul Tyler: If that is the case, the then Chief Whip's argument that it was necessary for a Government Back Bencher to chair the Committee is blown out of the water. As has been pointed out, a membership of 12 means that the Government and Opposition parties are evenly split. I have argued—I maintain this argument—that a significant scrutiny Committee such as the Public Accounts Committee can do its job well only if its Chairman is completely free from Government influence.
	The hon. Lady is a distinguished chair of the Committee. However, when she was appointed, she did not have any other responsibilities. She is now chair of the parliamentary Labour party and that puts her in an awkward position not just in relation to this Committee but in relation to the Liaison Committee. An extraordinary anomaly exists.
	As the hon. Lady said, the Committee is examining on our behalf the most controversial issues before the House. I welcome that; I am sure that it is doing so conscientiously. It took evidence from the Home Secretary yesterday, and I understand from the hon. Lady's comments that before our debates in the Chamber on Monday, it will produce a report on the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill and the derogation from the Human Rights Act 1998. Such matters could not be more important. This is therefore an extraordinary moment effectively to propose that we diminish participation in the Committee's deliberations.
	I think that the answer—if we are allowed to reopen the issue so soon after the appointment of members of the Committee—is to increase the membership from 12 to 18. As I understand the arithmetic in the two Houses, that would ensure that the Government retained their majority and it would no longer be necessary for a Government Member to chair the Committee. That would deal with the hon. Lady's dilemma over where her loyalties should lie and at the same time mean that more Members from both Houses were available for the deliberative and evidence- taking sessions. That seems a sensible solution. If the Minister's argument is, "Oh well, we do not want to disturb what is after all a fairly new Committee," why is the motion before us?

Kevin McNamara: First, when the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) reads the Committee's report, he might want to reconsider his argument. Secondly, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, East (Jean Corston) was elected as Chairman of the Committee on the nomination of Lord Lester of Herne Hill, who, I understand, takes the Liberal Democrat Whip. Moreover, she was unanimously re-elected.

Paul Tyler: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that that decision was taken before the hon. Lady became chairman of the parliamentary Labour party?

Kevin McNamara: I think that the decision was taken after that. My hon. Friend was elected as chairman of the PLP at the start of this Session, before the Select Committees had been re-established. She was then elected as Chairman of the Joint Committee. I am sure that my chronology is correct; if it is not, I apologise to the House.
	I have some sympathy with the point about the size of the Committee, but no amendment has been tabled to that effect. The House must think very carefully about whether Members serving on the Joint Committee will have greater demands made of them than of those serving on an ordinary Select Committee. Three members out of 11 is just over 25 per cent. If the motion is not passed, we shall be demanding 50 per cent. of the Members of this House who are members of the Joint Committee to attend its sittings. I am certain that that is unfair and in many ways improper. It is right that we should agree the motion.
	On the point about the logic of deliberating with such a small number of members, I see no difficulty in an amendment to that effect. I hope that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) tables such an amendment, and that if he does not do so, my hon. Friend the Minister will. In demanding that there are four members to reach a conclusion, we are in any event asking for one more than that required in any Select Committee. Where is the logic in such a suggestion?
	I would go further: I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will think in terms of establishing Sub-Committees of the Joint Committee because there is a great deal of work before it. That would enable us to consider specific pieces of legislation that cover a variety of fields in which different Members have an interest. People have various interests and expertise, including criminal law, health law, housing and a whole range of issues, and could report back to the full Committee. We are told that that can be done informally, but that is not the proper way of dealing with the matter; we have to have proper Sub-Committees.

Eric Forth: The hon. Gentleman is arguing, not unreasonably, on the basis of consistency across Committees. Does he agree that we should increase the quorum on Commons Committees so that Members take them more seriously? If their work was regarded more seriously, that might counter the view that a tiny rump of member can be expected to do the work of an entire Committee.

Kevin McNamara: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will deal with the Committee attendance of Conservative Members. I would be happy if he suggested that we increased the Commons representation on a Joint Committee to match representation on other Committees, which would help even more to deal with Sub-Committee work. If he did so and if we maintained the quorum that we have in the Commons, that would be acceptable.
	As a member of the Joint Committee, I believe that we should support the motion. It is important that the amendment to the Standing Order is agreed. As the hon. Member for North Cornwall suggested a moment ago, we should not denigrate the work of Select Committees, whether their membership is drawn from the Commons, the Lords or both Houses.

Stephen Twigg: First, I reiterate the point made by a number of Members by paying early tribute to the work of the new Joint Committee. I know that some Members did not support the passage of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the incorporation in British law of the European convention on human rights, but that had overwhelming support in both Houses.
	The establishment of the new Joint Committee is important. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, East (Jean Corston) and her colleagues in all parties in this House and the other place for moving quickly so that it could begin work. I have no doubt that if the fifth motion on the Order Paper is passed, the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) will be a valuable addition to the Committee. Having served alongside him on the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House of Commons, I know that he is an assiduous and articulate Committee member; I am sure that he will make a positive contribution to the work of the Joint Committee.
	From the Government's point of view, it seems that we cannot win. We have had a cross-party request from a Committee. Had we resisted that proposal or suggestion, we would have been criticised by the Opposition for obstructing Committee work. Instead, we have offered the House a sensible proposal, for which we have been attacked. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has said on several occasions, the Government believe that good scrutiny makes for good government; our proposal attempts to provide a sensible balance, as has been said by those of my hon. Friends who are members of the Joint Committee. I particularly welcome the fact that our proposal has clear cross-party support within the Committee; that is especially true of Lords members. Our proposal is about making the Joint Committee work and ensuring that it can succeed.
	There have been a number of Joint Committees; some have had quorums of three members from each House, others a standard quorum of two. We are not proposing such a standard quorum; we are simply proposing that a quorum should exist for the purpose of evidence taking. When decisions are considered by the Committee, the quorum will be larger, as originally agreed when the Committee was established. There is no question of casting votes in the Joint Committee. If such a Committee is to be successful, it is important that it works by consensus. If five votes were cast against five, or six against six in the Committee, that would suggest that it was not progressing as originally envisaged.
	I took note of what my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) said about Sub-Committees; we shall probably wish to return to that matter later. For all that we have heard from the Conservative and Liberal Front Benchers this afternoon, this is a sensible and modest change that will enable the new Joint Committee to work more successfully. On that basis, I commend it to the House.
	Question put and agreed to.

Madam Deputy Speaker: As the next item of business is set down for 4 o'clock, I suspend the sitting until that hour.
	Sitting suspended.

City of London (Ward Elections) Bill

On resuming—
	Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [7 November],
	That the promoters of the City of London (Ward Elections) Bill which originated in this House in the last Parliament but had not received the Royal Assent may, notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders or practice of this House, proceed with the bill in the present session of Parliament; and the petition for the bill shall be deemed to have been deposited and all Standing Orders applicable to it shall be deemed to have been complied with;
	That the bill shall be presented to the House by deposit in the Private Bill Office no later than the fifth day on which the House sits after this day;
	That a declaration signed by the agent shall be annexed to the bill, stating that it is the same in every respect as the bill presented in this House in the last Parliament;
	That on the next sitting day following presentation, the Clerk in the Private Bill Office shall lay the bill on the Table of the House;
	That in the present session of Parliament the bill shall be deemed to have passed through every stage through which it has passed in the last Parliament, and shall be recorded in the Journal of the House as having passed those stages;
	That no further fees shall be charged to such stages.— [Sir George Young.]

George Young: rose—

John McDonnell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is impolite of me to raise a point of order without giving you notice, so may I say that there is a range of points of order relating to compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998, the publication of the statement by the promoters, the declarations of interest relating to the Bill and the hybridity issues in relation to any changes in the Bill that I will not raise today because I have not given you notice but which, if the Bill proceeds, I will raise at a later date?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have noted the points that the hon. Gentleman has made.

George Young: As hon. Members who were present for the debate—or rather, the debates—in the previous Parliament will know, the Bill has an element of the controversial about it. Those debates were replied to, with great wit and courtesy, by Peter Brooke—now Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville—the City's MP in the last Parliament. I have to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field), his successor, that sponsoring a measure such as the City of London (Ward Elections) Bill is not the best initiation for any hon. Member, however able, in his first parliamentary Session.

John McDonnell: Why has the right hon. Gentleman been selected for this honour?

George Young: The hon. Gentleman anticipates my very next sentence. As a Minister at the Department of the Environment and subsequently as a Treasury Minister, I had frequent contact with the City, as I did as Transport Secretary. Also as a former London MP, a former borough councillor and indeed a former Greater London council member, I hope that I can satisfy the hon. Gentleman that I am acquainted with local government in the capital. Therefore, when I was asked to sponsor the Bill, I readily agreed.

John McDonnell: May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that on the basis of his experience he should know better?

George Young: I could not disagree more strongly. It is my knowledge of the background to the Bill, dating back to the Herbert commission in the 1960s, which decided that the City of London should remain as a corporation, that gives me renewed conviction to carry on the Bill in the footsteps of Lord Brooke.

Jeremy Corbyn: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

George Young: May I make some progress? I am familiar with the pattern of these debates. I should like to get a little mileage on the mileometer before I give way.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster will, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, deal with some constituency aspects relevant to the merits of this revival motion, and will pick up on points made in other hon. Members' contributions towards the conclusion of the debate.
	As this is a debate on revival, not a general debate on the Bill's merits, I will not risk your displeasure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by roaming at large over its provisions. I should, however, in addition to the procedural case for revival, like to refer in passing to the features of the Bill that have led the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) to contend, through the early-day motions that he has tabled this Session, that no further parliamentary time should be allocated to it. I should also like to refer to the amendments that will be proposed by the promoters if the revival is agreed by the House, as they may well be relevant to hon. Members' views of the merits of the motion before the House.

Jeremy Corbyn: There is a sense of deja vu about the Bill, dating back to November 1998, because we are now in our fourth year of discussing it. However, in the light of the right hon. Gentleman's considerable local government experience, does he not find it odd that he should be promoting a Bill that reduces the democracy of local government and increases the autocracy of the business vote in local government? Will he tell us what these wonderful amendments are that are about to be brought forward?

George Young: I said a moment ago that I would like to refer to the key amendment. I slept easily in my bed last night, knowing that I was going to propose the revival motion, because I do not find the Bill offensive in the way that the hon. Gentleman alleges it to be.
	The proposition that a private Bill might be continued from one Parliament to the next on a revival motion is unexceptional. By way of example, the House currently has before it the Barclays Group Reorganisation Bill, the Greenham and Crookham Commons Bill and the National Australia Group Europe Bill. Those are all private measures, that originated in the last Parliament, fell with the general election and have been revived again this Session. As the cognoscenti among hon. Members will know from "Erskine May", edition 22, page 928, motions have even been made to revive a number of private Bills en bloc. The motion before the House is of a more exclusive nature, but can claim no other distinguishing features.
	You may think it right, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for me to refer to one procedural aspect that had a significant bearing on the promoter's ability to make progress during the last Parliament and on the enhanced ability to make progress in the current one if the Bill is revived. That is the issue of human rights, to which the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington referred in his point of order, or rather the procedures to be applied to private legislation under the Human Rights Act 1998. That issue took up virtually all of two of the previous three-hour debates allocated to the Bill, the last being on 11 January. A substantial amount of time was also spent on points of order during the other debates. The House agreed the procedures to be applied to private Bills on 2 May and I know that that will be a relief to the hon. Gentleman, who has devoted a good deal of time to the subject during earlier debates.
	I note that the Standing Order changes were adopted by the House on 2 May without objection. If the City of London (Ward Elections) Bill is revived, the promoters will of course comply with the procedure that the House agreed.

John McDonnell: On a point of clarity, it is true that, as a result of the labours of Members on the Labour Benches in this Chamber, our procedure has changed. However, the fundamental point remains that the Bill strikes against fundamental human rights, which base democracy on one person, one vote.

George Young: The hon. Gentleman may have his own reservations. The promoters propose to comply with the new Standing Orders that were adopted by the House without dissent.
	With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall draw two remaining aspects to the attention of the House as they are relevant to consideration of the revival motion. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington sponsored two early-day motions. The first, early-day motion 112, proposes that
	"no further time of the House should be wasted on this measure"
	because it
	"offends against basic democratic principles by extending the business vote".
	I should record that, contrary to what he implies in his motion, the practice of Parliament since the Great Reform Act of 1832 has been to extend the City's non-domestic franchise to meet changing circumstances. For example, business voters are no longer required to live within a particular distance of the City as they were at the time of the great reforms, and changes made as recently as 1995 have extended the City's business vote to European Union nationals.
	The hon. Gentleman's other motion, 265, argues that no further parliamentary time should be given to the Bill because
	"many of the companies implicated in laundering terrorist funds via the City of London's financial institutions will gain a vote in the running of the City Corporation".
	This is not the occasion to debate the substance of that assertion, but as those entitled to vote in ward elections will, according to the Bill, be confined to British subjects and citizens of the Republic of Ireland plus those of other EU states, the promoters are not confident that they fully understand the point that he is trying to make. On behalf of the City I should, however, record the view that the sentiment expressed in the motion is somewhat tasteless.
	The Bill plainly does not enjoy the support of all hon. Members. It does, however, enjoy cross-party support and in previous debates the Government's attitude to it has been consistently supportive. The Minister for Local Government may wish to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I will remind the House of what the hon. Member for Streatham (Keith Hill) said when, as Minister with responsibility for London, he contributed to the last debate on a carry-over motion. He said:
	"The Bill's changes to the electoral system recognise the unique nature of the square mile and the need for an inclusive form of local governance that reflects . . . all those who have an interest".—[Official Report, 2 November 1999; Vol. 337, c. 190.]

Jeremy Corbyn: It would be helpful if the right hon. Gentleman could explain to the wider world what possible justification there may be for the City of London to have a totally different electoral system for local government from that of the rest of the country, or is it a pattern that he and some of his friends wish to be repeated elsewhere?

George Young: I have taken the opportunity of reading Hansard accounts of revival motions. On an earlier occasion, the Deputy Speaker was anxious that the debate should not stray beyond that motion and into the merits of the Bill. I do not want to fall foul of the Chair, by dealing in detail with some of the issues in the Bill. If the hon. Gentleman wants to discuss the Bill in detail, the best thing that he can do is to agree to the revival motion so that we can debate at a later stage the issues that excite him.

Jeremy Corbyn: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) has obviously gone way beyond the revival motion in describing the Bill's merits and you have accepted that, so presumably it is in order. It would surely be in order, therefore, for him to reply to the point that I made in my intervention.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have listened carefully to the points that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) is making in his opening remarks, and he has not yet strayed far enough away from the revival motion to incur my displeasure. Indeed, I agree with the remarks that he has made to date, and I shall listen carefully to the contributions of other hon. Members.

George Young: That is a great relief to me, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	Finally, I wish to say a few words about the amendments that the promoters will propose if the House agrees to revive the Bill, as that may assist the House in reaching a view on the merits of the motion. One of the principal objections advanced by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington and others has been to the extension of a property-based vote through rateable values. The reason that that route was taken by the promoters is a matter of record and has been debated extensively. The promoters have sought to deal with that objection, given the constraint that any form of general commuter vote would swamp the existing residential vote and would therefore be unacceptable to City residents.
	The promoters now believe that an alternative to rateable values could, however, be introduced as the basis for the voting entitlement that would be conferred by the Bill. So, if the House agrees to the revival motion, amendments will be introduced to remove the proposed voting entitlement based on the rateable value of premises and replace it with a scheme that relates voting entitlement to the number of people who work on the premises. If the House agrees to the motion, as I hope that it will, hon. Members will have a full opportunity to examine the proposals and take a view on them.
	The failure of the House to agree that the Bill should be revived would derail the reform movement in the City of London as the Bill would be lost in its entirety. Neither the City of London, nor Labour Members—indeed, no one—agrees that the status quo is satisfactory, but that would remain unchanged if the Bill were not revived. I hope that the House will agree, by supporting the motion, that the status quo should not remain unchanged.

John McDonnell: I welcome all hon. Members present—especially yourself, Mr. Deputy Speaker—to our fourth year of discussing the Bill. This is not an evening for long discussion, and I hope that we shall all soon be able to head off to our respective constituencies to meet our constituents.
	We are considering a tainted piece of detritus, which has been introduced by the City of London corporation and promoted by the usual group of freeloading freemasons. We need to consider the motion with the conciseness of the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young), who is now sponsoring the Bill—the second Member to do so during the fourth year of our considering it. We will miss the eloquence of Peter Brooke, who has now gone to the other place.

Jeremy Corbyn: My hon. Friend will have heard the Bill's sponsor say that a substantive amendment will be introduced, changing the basis of the Bill. Does he agree therefore that the Bill will take a rather different form and that we should consider a new Bill, not the old one?

John McDonnell: I shall shortly deal with that point because it is fundamental to the consideration of the motion. There have been proposals, which may constitute a new Bill if taken at their face value. However, anything that the City of London corporation has told the House cannot be taken at face value.
	I preface my remarks with a note of caution to those on the Government Front Bench. I am not superstitious, except about two things. First, I never sit in the stand when Hayes football club plays, because they always lose when I do so. I usually stand near the corner flag; they still lose, but I do not get the blame. Secondly, I am superstitious about the Bill. Ministers have been brought forward, by No. 10, to defend the Bill. It should be made clear that the motion is supported by the Government; it is not some naive motion produced by the promoters themselves. The Bill would not even appear on our agenda today without the Government's support, as has been made clear in debate after debate. However, having looked at the sequence of Ministers who have made various arguments to carry over and promote the Bill at different stages, I have to express a note of caution. For instance, within months of his support for the Bill, the mayoral ambitions of my right hon. Friend the Minister for local Government came, tragically, to nothing—a result, I believe, of his association with the Bill.
	I think that the Bill is cursed. Let us consider the Ministers who have laid down various procedural motions to carry it forward. I have mentioned my right hon. Friend, who is condemned to labour in the Siberia of standard spending assessments for the rest of his ministerial career. We have been through four Ministers and three Whips.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not carry on in this vein and will soon get to the reasons why the Bill should or should not be revived.

John McDonnell: One of the main reasons for not reviving the Bill is that it is a dangerous Bill with which to be associated. That has been demonstrated on numerous occasions by Ministers who have promoted it. My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Keith Hill) was the next Minister who came forward to promote the Bill, and he is now Deputy Chief Whip in the Whips Office. He lost a ministerial position, where he could have made policy, and is now part of a partnership with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. McAvoy).

Nick Raynsford: My hon. Friend presents the facts in a slightly curious way. An objective appraisal of the careers of the two Ministers who have spoken for the Government on the Bill is that both have subsequently been promoted.

John McDonnell: I do not believe that removal from a ministerial job to the Whips Office in such a way would be considered promotion. Indeed, the Whip who was associated with the Bill is no longer in the Whips Office. Any Minister who comes forward is dragged here as a result of the demands of No. 10. However, I do not want to go into the careers of the Deputy Prime Minister and other Ministers who have been moved from the former Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions to the Home Office.
	Let us consider the motion paragraph by paragraph. I hope that we can bring it to the vote fairly quickly and reject it and that we will be able to convince right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House that the Bill should not be revived on the basis of the motion's proposals, which I shall take in reverse order.
	The last proposal in the motion is that no further fees shall be charged at any stage as a result of the carry-over. That is outrageous. Fee charging for private Bills performs two functions. First, it is an income to the Exchequer—admittedly, it is only a few hundred pounds, but it is not insignificant. Secondly, it covers some of the costs of presenting and publishing the Bill and the administration—the Bill's handling charge, as it were. The maximum amount, which is adhered to for all such private Bills, is a fairly minimal sum.
	The City of London's budget is billions of pounds. I do not even want to enter into discussions about the City cash, which is part of its budget, whose accounts are neither audited nor published. That is another matter for another debate. However, we know from its published budget that the City of London corporation is a wealthy local authority. In my view, for the motion to argue that the fee should not be paid as a result of the carry-over is a disgrace. Might I suggest that the City of London corporation reconsiders its refusal to pay this paltry sum? It might even indicate to the Bill's promoters that the sum will either be paid or donated to a charity, such as Harlington hospice in my constituency. That is a good cause, related to the interests of London.
	It is time to reconsider such motions, because it is a disgrace to charge a corporate body of this size a standard fee, and then to waive it when the Bill is carried over. We should be arguing now for a sliding scale of fees, dependent on the size of the corporate body and on how much it is able to pay. For the Corporation of London, it should be a case of "can pay, will pay". The fee should not be waived; it should not only cover the administrative costs of the Bill's passage through Parliament but make a substantial contribution to an associated cause.
	If we had a sliding scale of fees, instead of this proposal to waive the fee altogether, the amount could be based on a percentage of the corporation's overall budget. For example, even if the percentage were very small, it would produce £2 million or £3 million for regeneration initiatives on the fringe of the City. I will not even suggest that the money should be invested in Hayes, Hornchurch, or Islington, North or in the north-east of the country. Fees could be related to the amount that the corporation can pay and donated to an associated cause. Even a donation to the Westminster Foundation for Democracy might help and, in this case, it would be a relevant cause.
	If for no other reason, the motion to revive the Bill is not acceptable because of the refusal to cover what will be a cost to this House. Donations by the corporation would assist in smoothing the Bill's path. If that sounds like the corporation's usual practice of buying influence, I suggest that a better comparison is with planning agreements under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, in which donations are made to local authorities in return for planning application approvals, and those donations are passed on to appropriate or associated local initiatives. I suggest that the House should not agree to the motion because of the proposal to waive the fee.
	I am going through the proposals in the motion in reverse order, so I turn now to the fifth paragraph, which says:
	"That in the present session of Parliament the bill shall be deemed to have passed through every stage through which it has passed in the last Parliament, and shall be recorded in the Journal of the House as having passed those stages".
	This is a new Parliament, and many new Members were elected at the last general election. They may well have wanted to serve on the Committee that scrutinised the petitions for and against the Bill, but they will not now be given the chance because, if the motion is passed, we will go straight on to consideration of the Bill by the whole House. No further petitions will be allowed. New Members will not be entitled to scrutinise in Committee even the old petitions, let alone new petitions.
	Some considerable time has passed. The Bill is now in the fourth year of its passage. Since it was published, new information has come to light that hon. Members particularly newly elected ones, would want to have considered in Committee. There is also new information on the basis of which individuals in the community may have wanted to petition against the Bill. According to the motion, they will have no opportunity to do so because we will go straight on to consideration of the Bill by the whole House. We will lose the opportunity to make any more petitions based on new information.
	Since the Bill was considered by a Committee, new information has come to light on which hon. Members may well have wanted to base their decision on whether to allow the Bill to proceed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) pointed out, the promoters now propose significantly to alter the substance of the Bill. That proposal, as the right hon. Member for North–West Hampshire said, is to base the extension of the franchise to the business vote not on rateable values but on a count of employees.
	I will deal with the detail of those arguments later. If we take them at face value and the change is substantial and significant, the Bill is in effect new, although I would argue that it may well not be. We do not want to mislead the House that the change is as significant as some commentators suggest.
	The Bill cannot be deemed to have proceeded appropriately through its previous stages in its former guise if the substantial amendments are presented at a later date. We should return to the stage at which new petitions can be submitted based on the new amendments if they are significant and substantial. A new Committee would be able to examine the detail in the light of new information, new amendments and any new petitions.
	Let me give a brief example of information that has come to light since the Bill was published and that dramatically affects our considerations. The Bill would extend votes to a vast range of businesses located in the City. There are no proposals at this stage to exclude businesses on the basis of their performance within the City and the global financial system. I believe that consideration of petitions and proposals would have been influenced by recent revelations that some City companies that will gain votes if the Bill makes further progress have allegedly been money laundering.
	The debate in the French Parliament was clear. The report before it identified British companies that were considered to be elements of an international money laundering system. If that information had been before the Committee or even the general public when the Bill was published, petitions would have been made to consider amending the Bill to exclude those companies from gaining a role in the governance of the City on the basis of money laundering. We could have examined procedures in Committee or the House at that early stage, based on petitions from individuals or others, to suspend the companies under investigation and prevent people from holding office who are from a company that is proven to be involved in money laundering. Had that information been available, petitioners would have had the opportunity to obtain approval from the Committee that scrutinised the Bill to introduce procedural changes to prevent money launderers from participating in the affairs of the City of London.
	It is important to realise, however, that the Bill does not simply affect the governance of the City corporation. If we agree to the motion, the carry-over will enable the City corporation to extend its franchise to businesses, some of which are being investigated for money laundering, which will then have a role in the governance of the city as a whole because the City counts as an individual borough in the consultative arrangements for the Mayor of London and by the Government office of London.

Edward Davey: If those companies are found guilty of criminal activities, will not they be dealt with under other legislation and penalised in the appropriate manner?

John McDonnell: There is nothing to suspend those companies from operating in the City corporation while they are under investigation. Many of the companies that are under investigation have not been suspended from trading. As a result of the report to the French Parliament, many of us believe that they should not have a part in the affairs of the governance of London while under investigation.

Edward Davey: I do not understand the hon. Gentleman's point. Is he suggesting that if an election takes place while a citizen is under police investigation, that citizen should not be able to vote?

John McDonnell: Let us equate a business that will exercise a democratic vote under the business franchise within its area, which is an influential position, with a Member who serves in the House. If an hon. Member is under investigation, he or she usually withdraws or is suspended. We should follow that example, because the Bill does not deal with individual voters but with businesses that in effect exercise a block vote.

Edward Davey: If Members are under investigation and appear before the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges, they continue to vote in the House. It is only when they are found guilty and are asked to withdraw that they no longer exercise that right.

John McDonnell: That applies when Members are found guilty under the procedures of the House, but not necessarily in law itself. We should apply similar standards to the exercise of what is, in effect, a massive business block vote.
	The charges that have been made against certain companies are so severe that we should consider carefully whether the Bill should be carried over. It will give several companies that are under investigation for money laundering a role in the democratic government of the City.

John Cryer: Is my hon. Friend saying that, if some companies are found guilty of serious crimes, nothing can be done under the Bill to exclude them from the governance of London?

John McDonnell: My point is different. If those companies are found guilty, they might be brought before the law and fined. However, the proposals in the Bill will not preclude them from exercising a vote in the City of London corporation. My point is that, depending on the severity of the crime, it should be possible to suspend those companies from operating within the City corporation while they are under investigation.
	In the House, if a severe charge were made against a Member, the onus would be on that Member to withdraw from exercising a role within the democratic mechanisms of the House while he was under investigation. That has happened on a number of occasions in the past when Members have been investigated for what might be serious criminal activity.
	I am happy to go through the list of firms that have been identified in the report—although you would not want me to do that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I shall not. The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire described an early-day motion on that issue as tasteless, but I find tasteless the activities of companies that have received laundered money from Nigeria and that are even, we believe, associated with Osama bin Laden.
	The Bill will supposedly be substantially altered by future amendments. However, before we have seen the detail of how it will be altered, we are expected to accept the motion and take a leap in the dark. We are expected to agree to further debate before we have seen the amendments. All that the promoters have provided is yet another statement, and I cannot remember how many such statements they have published. The promoters tell us:
	"In proposing the alterations to the existing business franchise provided for by the Bill the Corporation's aim has been to strengthen the link between the right to vote and the interests of those for which the Corporation provides services . . . The promoters have, however, noted the continuing criticism which has been made of an entitlement related to property values."
	It is on that basis that we have been told in the debate that amendments will be tabled for our consideration.
	However, we have been asked to accept the motion without the detail of those amendments or any information about them. We are supposed to take a leap in the dark. In fact, we are being asked to make a leap of faith on the basis of the City corporation's track record and the assurances that it has given for previous debates on carry-over. Let us consider them, because the motion must stand in its own right but be viewed against the corporation's track record. In previous statements—it repeats this in the latest—the corporation told us:
	"The Bill forms part of a wider package of reforming measures, and the Promoters have given the Select Committee formal undertakings as to the implementation of the remainder. These can be dealt with by the City's own legislative mechanisms and do not therefore require Parliamentary powers."
	When the carry-over was debated in the past, what held sway in many Members' minds—certainly in that of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government—was the view that, although it might be a tawdry rag of a Bill, it would produce some improvements in democracy. The argument was that the Bill should be carried over because it would be getting something from the City corporation, no matter how minor—crumbs from the City corporation table. We were promised in the Select Committee, as set out in paragraph 9 of the statement, a series of improvements that would protect the residents' vote but did not have to be included in the Bill.

Bill Etherington: I take issue with my hon. Friend on one matter. I understand the sophistication of his line-by-line, detailed argument, but surely we cannot talk about improvements when an issue is fundamentally rotten and wrong. Rather than arguing over small issues, should we not be arguing that the Bill is an affront to democracy and as such should be thrown out?

John McDonnell: I could not have put it better myself; I agree. However, I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would call me to order if I tried to pursue that general argument, so I let it stand on the record as a good summary of my views.

Jeremy Corbyn: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will have heard both the sponsor of the Bill, the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young), and my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) refer to substantial amendments that are not before the House. Have you or your office had sight of those amendments? If so, do they substantially alter the basis of the Bill, to the extent that it should be reintroduced rather than be the subject of a carry-over motion?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have had no sight of the amendments.

John McDonnell: I shall return to my earlier point and consider later whether the amendments affect the substantive nature of the Bill. It is important that we return to that matter in this debate.
	We are being asked to agree to carry over the Bill on the basis of an offer from the promoters on behalf of the City of London corporation. They have said that wonderful amendments will be tabled and that, lo and behold, democracy will reign in the City corporation—based not just on residence or businesses but on a workers' soviet on the entitlement of employees to vote. We need to consider what the corporation has done in the past when giving such assurances.
	According to paragraph 9 of the promoters' statement on the motion,
	"a wider package of reforming measures"
	was to be introduced. That was promised to us in 1998, but not a single measure or part of the package of supposed reforming measures has been introduced. I would expect my right hon. Friend the Minister to feel somewhat aggrieved that the deal between No. 10 and the City corporation on that package has been reneged on.
	When considering carry-over motions, amendments and the quality of the Bill, we were told that the reforming measures did not need to be included in the Bill, were not part of the parliamentary process and would be implemented anyway. To convince us that the Bill should be carried over, we were told that the amendments represented an act of good will on the part of the City corporation. I do not any more accept that there is such good will, because if there were, the package of reforming measures would have been implemented already. I would be happy to give way to the right hon. Member for North–West Hampshire if he could describe the measures that were promised and those that have been implemented. He is silent because none of the measures has been introduced.
	Given that track record, and on the basis of a promise of amendments that have not been published, received by the Deputy Speaker or seen by anyone, how can we take as a beneficent offer the proposal that we support the motion to carry the Bill over? We should call for a report and the reconvening of the Committee rather than allowing a Division at the end of this debate and the motion to be accepted.
	The motion should summon the City corporation to ask what happened and why promises to the House, which we received in good faith, were not implemented. If the amendments are substantial, there will, in effect, be a new Bill. Tonight's debate is not about carry-over, but a new Bill. Petitioners should therefore be informed that we will start again with a new Bill and allow petitions; or perhaps we should consider a procedure—I am happy to meet the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire halfway on a compromise—whereby the amendments are published and petitioners allowed to petition on them.
	Changing the Bill at this late stage denies the rights of petitioners. If the amendments are fundamental, we should at least allow the right of petition to be reintroduced. Again, I urge the right hon. Gentleman to consult the City corporation, even during our debate, to see whether we can reach a compromise. New parties and groups of individuals will be affected if, as he says, the amendments change the basis of the franchise from rateable value to a formula that takes account of the number of employees. Bills are declared hybrid if they affect certain individuals or classes of individual, and go through a process similar to that for a private Member's Bill. Once individuals know that they are affected, they are given the right to petition. In a private Bill, we go through the same process; people who are affected should have the right to a say and a direct line of communication to the House

Bill Etherington: My hon. Friend has come to the nub of the problem: the nebulousness of what we are trying to discuss. Will he say more about how democracy will be improved by changing the property vote from one based on floor area to one based on the number of people employed in the building?

John McDonnell: I will not encourage your intervention, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by going into the principles of the Bill. However, with your discretion, I should like to deal with the proposal as it affects the carry-over; that is a matter of procedure, not principle.
	If new parties are affected by an amendment to a Bill of this nature, they should be allowed a direct line of communication to the House to explain how they are affected. That will enable us to consider how the Bill, the amendment or, as it is becoming, the new Bill, will affect them and how we should protect their interests. I give the example of employees themselves. As the right hon. Member for North–West Hampshire said, the amendment would base the franchise on the number of employees in a company. I am sure that employees, whether individually or in groups, and the trade unions have questions about that. A year ago, the City corporation floated a range of ideas for amendments, but they were not based on a count of employees, as we suggested. Instead, they identified individual companies, assessed their rateable value and the number of employees employed in relation to that value, and used that to determine its vote. In other words, there was no amendment to ensure a count of employees or that the franchise would be based on the number of workers in the company; it would be based on rateable value.
	If such an amendment is now being proposed again—I do not know because no one has seen it apart from those promoting the Bill, who, suspiciously, are keeping it close to their chest—it is pointless because it is a thinly veiled attempted to con the House that it is an improvement to the democratic system. It is not. The corporation would not be reformed. A proposal would be made that votes be sold to businesses just as before. It would be said that the proposal was based on numbers of employees, but that would not be the case. The proposal would be based on rateable value.
	The proposal was bandied about 12 months ago, and we considered it farcical. That is why amendments were tabled in the spirit of the Bill. If there had been procedural problems and we had been unable to get them through the House in the previous Session, I would have supported the carry-over motion. The amendments were simple. The intention behind them was to base the franchise on the number of a company's employees, with a proper count and registration of the companies, as there is of electors and others.
	I would welcome a comment from the Minister about what was or is wrong with such a proposal. Why did the Government not support it? If they had done so, this evening's debate would not have taken the same form. The motion would have been carried unanimously rather than having to have a debate that is revealing that the corporation is not budging an inch.
	We need to reject the motion and go back to Committee. If there were a way to amend it, I would seek to do so. Even if I supported the carrying over of the present Bill, we should have a democratic right to return to Committee. I think that some of the Members who considered these matters in Committee are embarrassed that they have allowed a Bill to come before the House that is based upon the promises that were set out in the promoter's statement, none of which have been adhered to. I urge the Minister who is responsible for the Bill, although he refuses to accept that word—my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford)—to take the matter back. We have substantially a new Bill before us.

Robert Syms: As a Member who was involved in the opposed private Bill business, I can say that the Committee considered these issues thoroughly. We took evidence from many people, including representatives of the City of London Labour party, and I think that we came to sensible conclusions. We produced some amendments, which have been incorporated. The City corporation is acknowledging that because four years have passed, it can improve the Bill. If the revival motion is agreed to, we can fully debate the Bill.

John McDonnell: I think that the hon. Gentleman has missed my point. He did the best job that he could in Committee with the material that he had before him, but the problem with that material is that it did not contain the proposal that has been advanced tonight. If it had contained it, he could have examined the corporation in detail about implementation and then consulted other petitioners, and other petitioners would have come forward. Perhaps he could have persuaded the corporation to move away from the detail of the amendment that has been suggested, or the previous amendment, which does not include a count or a register of employees. Thereafter, he could have persuaded the corporation to introduce a worthwhile amendment. I am convinced of his forensic ability, and of his powers to persuade the corporation.
	If we reject the motion, we shall be asking the corporation to pause, to think carefully about the amendments that it wants to table and to consult. I envisage consultation with the businesses that comprise the corporation electorate already, those that are seeking to acquire votes and influence within the corporation, residents, the mayor, the London boroughs and others.
	I make the corporation an offer. The compromise of withdrawing the motion would give us the opportunity as individual Members to consult it about the nature of the supposedly significant amendment that has been brought forward. It would be an insult to the House if such a Bill, based upon a significant amendment, were forced through the House without that consultation.
	Hon. Members may recall that, in previous debates on carry-over motions for this legislation and on the legislation itself, the City corporation made the strong point that there had been considerable consultation with all the bodies that I mentioned, including the Association of London Government and the boroughs themselves, and that there had been some consultation with residents and businesses. The position of London Mayor did not exist at that time. However, at no point in those consultations was a proposal presented to grant the franchise on the basis of employee numbers. Such a proposal was never made to the City's current electorate or presented for consultation with the London boroughs and other bodies. It therefore flies in the face of the City corporation's own statements to introduce a novel amendment on which there has been no consultation.

Jeremy Corbyn: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to rise for a third time on a point of order. However, as you have not received the amendments to which various hon. Members in the Chamber have referred, and therefore cannot rule on whether they would so substantially change the Bill that it would be within the Speaker's remit to order that a new Bill be introduced, would it not be appropriate to abandon this debate until the promoters have produced their amendments, so that the Speaker, Deputy Speakers and Clerks could advise the House on whether the amendments are in order?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: No.

John McDonnell: I can see that that was a considered response, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like, on a point of order, to ask you the rationale for that response, but I shall not press the point.
	The second and fourth paragraphs of the motion relate to the consultation issue. The second paragraph states:
	"the Bill shall be presented to the House by deposit in the Private Bill Office no later than the fifth day on which the House sits after this day".
	The fourth paragraph states:
	"on the next sitting day following presentation, the Clerk in the Private Bill Office shall lay the Bill on the Table of the House".
	We should reject the motion on basis of those provisions alone. The Bill should be re-published with the proposed amendments. We should be able to see both the current Bill and a redrafted Bill.

Bill Etherington: Does my hon. Friend think that, rather than considering a revised Bill, it would be better if the Government introduced a new Bill to bring the City of London into line with the rest of the country, where there are democratic elections based not on property but on one person, one vote? Would not that have been far preferable?

John McDonnell: Although I do not want to offend your sensibilities, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in managing the affairs of the House, I have to say that I fully agree with my hon. Friend. We would not be having this debate if this Labour Government had adhered to the Labour party policy that had existed for almost 70 years: to ensure that local government is democratic and based on universal adult suffrage. I leave it to my hon. Friend to take that message—with some trepidation, I should think—to wherever he thinks it important to take it.
	I am concerned about the time scale specified in the second and fourth paragraphs of the motion. I take it that the Clerks or the occupant of the Chair will advise us on whether they are standard in all opposed private business carry-over motions. As I said, I genuinely feel that the City corporation could do us all a service by publishing both the current Bill and a Bill that has been amended as they propose. That would give us an opportunity not only to consider the new proposals but almost to have pre-legislative scrutiny, such as we have had for other Bills.
	The Bill should not be placed on the Table without an alternative Bill, or at least the amendments, being published. The justification for the amendments should also be published, and in a language that all—but especially hon. Members and the City corporation residential electorate—can understand. People should understand what would be done to them by these apparently hidden private amendments that we have not seen. There should now be a detailed procedure for consultation and discussion, so the time limits are now unrealistic. It is unrealistic to expect the Bill to be presented on the fifth day and placed on the Table on the next sitting day following its presentation.
	I argue for a compromise. If the motion is passed, I suggest that the Bill should not be placed on the Table for at least a month after its presentation. That would allow thorough discussion. I welcome an informal discussion involving all interested parties, including all my hon. Friends who have expressed reservations about the Bill. We have met the City corporation on several occasions, but I shall not go into those discussions as I found some of them offensive. Perhaps that is something for the memoirs. We need to discuss informally the detail of the Bill before it comes back to the House. On that basis, I argue against the proposed time constraints.
	The third paragraph of the motion states:
	"That a declaration signed by the agent shall be annexed to the bill, stating that it is the same in every respect as the bill presented in this House in the last Parliament;"
	What a pointless exercise that will be. We have already been told that the promoters plan to present amendments that will significantly alter the Bill, so we are asking the agent to produce a declaration telling us that it is the same Bill while the City corporation has up its sleeve secret amendments that it will not divulge even to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	It is pointless for us to agree to that paragraph of the motion this evening. In fact, we should agree a motion that says that a declaration signed by the agent shall be annexed to the Bill stating that amendments are being proposed by the City corporation and setting them out. At least that would give us the opportunity to have sight of them.
	I shall now sum up quickly because I have to meet some constituents. The first paragraph of the motion is the key to the debate. I accept that it is difficult not to stray into the principles of the Bill and I shall accept any ruling that you might make, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It states:
	"That the promoters of the City of London (Ward Elections) Bill which originated in this House in the last Parliament . . . had not received . . . Royal Assent".
	The Bill originated in the last Parliament, but this is a new Parliament with a new mandate. We were all elected at a general election this year. The Bill did not receive Royal Assent as a result of decisions taken by the last Parliament. This is a new Parliament, newly elected with new mandates. The Bill did not receive Royal Assent because some of us argued that there was not sufficient mandate for it in the last Parliament. The argument of Ministers was then based on a reading of the 1997 Labour manifesto that bizarrely assembled eclectic phrases and sentences from different pages of the manifesto to justify the reform of the City of London corporation on this basis. It was difficult for any of us to keep a straight face when that argument was made, but at least it had the fig leaf of being based on some form of manifesto commitment, so there was a mandate for bringing forward something.
	I do not think that any party put forward these proposals in any manifesto at this year's general election. I am happy to give way to any hon. Member who can draw attention to an election manifesto that stated that we were about to sell votes in the City of London to any business that could buy a piece of land. I hear no takers and that is fair enough. In that case, the first paragraph of the motion is critical. The Bill did not receive Royal Assent in the last Parliament and this is a new Parliament. We have no mandate for the Bill and on that basis the motion should not stand as it has no reference to any manifesto. We were not elected on this mandate. The whole point of our constitution and the House considering motions of this sort is based upon the premise that we are elected on the basis of what we say to our electors, as honestly as we can.
	They honestly vote for us, or do not, and we are returned on the basis of what we say as individuals and as parties. We did not tell the electorate that we intended to carry over the Bill. I have asked individual Members to search their election literature for any statement to any individual in their constituencies that made reference to the motion or its contents.
	I would like to hear from the Liberal Democrats whether they won their seats on the basis of selling votes in the City of London or of supporting rotten boroughs. I would like to consult the electorate of Greenwich to ask whether the Minister included the motion in his personal manifesto. Was a leaflet produced in the general election campaign that said that we would sell votes to businesses, some of which have been accused of money laundering for Osama bin Laden?
	We have no right even to consider the motion, let alone carry it tonight. It is an offence against democracy that it is even on our agenda. It was an offence against democracy last time, and we are now in the fourth year of consideration. At least last time some jiggery-pokery with the manifesto gave some justification for the Bill's consideration, but even that fig leaf of a defence is not being used this time.
	Last time, the Bill did not reach Royal Assent. Why do we drag the Queen into the matter? Why should she be associated with that bunch of freeloading freemasons who launder money for the City of London corporation? No Royal Assent can be given to the Bill because it is an offence to all decent human beings, and I include the royal family among them.
	The motion would make fundamental changes to our constitution and on that basis, I urge hon. Members to reject it. I urge hon. Members to read the words, because if we carry the motion tonight it will mean that
	"the petition for the bill shall be deemed to have been deposited and all Standing Order applicable to it shall be deemed to have been complied with".
	That equates to support for the Bill itself. All those who vote for the motion will be supporting the Bill. They will be supporting the extension of the vote to businesses. We must reject that. In the 21st century, if we cannot stand up for the principle of democracy of one person, one vote, and if the Government succumb to the blandishments of the City of London corporation—the freeloaders and of the wining and dining circuit of the City—I shall wonder what has become of the Labour party. That is a serious issue.
	The consideration of the motion is taking up the time of the House. If the motion passes, it will take up the time of the House for the next three or four years. The right hon. Member for North–West Hampshire has secret amendments, but I also have amendments that might improve the Bill. I will go back to my earlier 150 amendments and I will amend and amend again. Unless we reach some agreement, not only is the motion not supportable, neither is the Bill.
	I would like to debate many issues in the House. Private Members have Bills that they wish to introduce. For example, I want to ban hunting and I want to tackle homelessness. If the motion passes, it will take up time of the House that could be spent considering worthwhile Bills. Why should we consider this degrading legislation when we are in the middle of a war? We could consider homelessness, rising unemployment, the problems in the health service, local government finance issues, pensions or environmental issues. We discussed today the private Member's Bill on marine wildlife protection, and there are many others, but this Bill will crowd them out.
	We should reject the motion. The Bill no longer covers the issues that it should cover and that we agreed as a party so long ago. The Labour party wanted to introduce democratic reform of the City of London corporation, and I would have been happy to consider a business district for the corporation. However, business districts all over the world are accountable to some democratic body. Instead of agreeing a carry-over motion, as we did two years ago, our suggestion was that the business district of the City of London corporation should be accountable to the Mayor for London, an institution that was then being introduced.
	There was an opportunity then for us to reform the Bill and insert that democratic element, but the Bill's proposers have produced another statement that completely disregards the new democratic structures for the strategic governance of London. It contains no acknowledgement that time has moved on and that London's structures of governance have changed. That is why I believe that we should throw the Bill out.

Jeremy Corbyn: I am puzzled by my hon. Friend's reference to a statement from the promoters. Those of us who were here in the previous Parliament will know that such a statement was produced then, but I am not aware that any new statement has been circulated to hon. Members today.

John McDonnell: A statement was lodged in the Vote Office. A number of hon. Members received a letter from the City corporation in relation to the motion. Those of us who did not receive the letter clearly are not on the corporation's Christmas card list this year. I deeply regret that we did not get the letter, but the statement is available from the Vote Office. I assure my hon. Friend that it is not worth reading, as it does not vary much from what we have heard before. It is an insinuation rather than a statement.
	I suggest that we should consider a compromise. Instead of passing the motion, I suggest that we suspend consideration and that the promoters consider withdrawing it. We should then set up a commission to consider the real reform of the City of London corporation. That commission should adopt a consensual approach that involves all those who, in new Labour terms, would be called stakeholders. We should also establish a discussion involving MPs, and invite academics to undertake a further investigation of the available options.
	In addition, the time scale should be limited. The motion sets out a period of five days, but I suggest that we set a time scale of six months, within which a consensual proposal for the democratic form of the City of London corporation could be agreed.
	It might turn out that we could not reach consensus after six months, but we should try. It behoves the City of London corporation—given its resources and its ability to exert influence in connection with its relationship with No. 10, which was referred to earlier—at least to consider my proposal, instead of pushing the motion through tonight.
	I close by saying that I have set out what I believe should be the objectives of the new institution that could arise out of those discussions.

Mark Francois: The hon. Gentleman has been on the point of ending his speech about five times, so I shall be brief. He referred a few moments ago to people making progress, and I assure him that his kind words about the royal family will be much appreciated among Conservative Members. That shows that even he is making progress, to a limited degree.

John McDonnell: I am grateful for that intervention, although I must warn Her Majesty that she should not be associated with motions such as this.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The debate on the motion is very narrow, and certainly does not include members of the royal family.

John McDonnell: I fully agree, Madam Deputy Speaker. If it were up to me, no motion on any Bill would refer to Royal Assent, as the country would be a republic. However, we should move on.
	I am offering a compromise: a commission, lasting six months, to set out what the objectives of the City corporation should be. The motion promotes a Bill that is undemocratic in its form and nature, with amendments that we have not seen. The City corporation should meet the objectives of the consultation paper from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which says that the Department wants a quality council to
	"be representative of, and actively engage, all parts of its community, providing vision, identity and a sense of belonging . . . be effectively and properly managed . . . articulate the needs and wishes of its community . . . work in partnership with principal authorities and other public service agencies . . . in proportion to size and skills, deliver local services on behalf of principal authorities . . . in proportion to size and skills, undertake more service delivery and other responsibilities themselves . . . work closely with voluntary groups in their communities . . . give leadership to work by the community on town or village plans . . . act as an information point for local services."
	That is what the City corporation should be doing.

Jeremy Corbyn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, as I know that he is anxious to bring his remarks to a conclusion. I am grateful also that he has informed me of the promoters' statement, in which I note that the City makes it clear that it intends to bring forward a substantial amendment to alter the fundamentals of the Bill. He has read this and other documents closely. Does he think that that is in order? Should we be aiming for a completely new Bill, and not have a carry-over motion at all?

John McDonnell: As you were not in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, you may not be aware that we have covered this point extensively, so I shall be brief. Tonight we must consider the motion. How can we consider the motion on the basis of the existing Bill, when we are told that—most probably within hours, if not days—the Bill will be significantly amended? It is a farcical process that undermines democracy. Why become elected if the manifesto on which one is elected contains no mention of putting to the electorate the idea that such legislation will be proposed? When such a Bill is published and we try to debate it, we are told not to worry, because we can carry it over. However, it will be amended the next day in a way that makes it almost unrecognisable.
	What is the point of this debate? Why does the right hon. Member for North–West Hampshire not do the honourable thing and withdraw the motion? Why does he not suggest tonight that we have the six-month breathing space, and establish a commission to try to abide by the objectives set out by the Government, and by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government in his discussions on parish and town councils and other local authorities?
	The key issue is to articulate the needs and wishes of the community. I can accept that the Bill is trying to articulate the needs of the whole community within the City corporation: the residents and the businesses. But this matter is not worth carrying over unless the Bill articulates the wishes of the workers themselves. The amendment—which has not been tabled, but alluded to—could be pulled out of the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire's sleeve, photocopied and circulated. However, the amendment that was suggested privately 12 months ago—the same one to which he has alluded—does not give the right to the workers to have a vote in the City corporation. It simply uses them as the fodder upon which votes by businesses will then be cast.
	The criticisms tonight are the same that the Conservative party used about the block vote years ago, and the same used about the constitution of the Soviet Union, which established votes on the basis of large Soviets of individual factories while the workers never had a vote themselves. That is why the motion should be rejected. We want to go back to the process of democratic discussion and debate to enable us to amend the Bill and reach a satisfactory conclusion. My view is that we are not entering into that process but into a hide-and-seek one.

Jeremy Corbyn: My hon. Friend talks about a democratic mandate. Does he recall that, on 15 May of this year in the Hayes Labour club, I drew attention to his activities in opposing the Bill in the previous Parliament? As soon as I did, overwhelming cheers broke out around the hall. It would seem that he is the only Member with a democratic mandate to oppose the Bill.

John McDonnell: My hon. Friend makes a good point. If we accept the motion and carry over the measure, there is a real chance that some Members will want to promote such legislation elsewhere. Last year, during discussions on this Bill, I was approached by representatives of a Japanese business newspaper and informed that they had been considering the Bill, that it was interesting and that it could be used—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman once more of the narrowness of this debate?

John McDonnell: Of course, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was merely referring to my democratic mandate from my constituents as against the democratic mandate that is being undermined by the Bill.
	I urge the sponsor of the Bill, even at this late stage, to pull back, to advise the House that the motion should not be voted on and to accept our compromise offer of six months co-operative collaborative work on an agreed, consensual approach to the reform of the City corporation—establishing a commission, involving all the stakeholders and allowing us to make a proper proposal. It is unacceptable to introduce a Bill in one Parliament, to try to have it carried over, to tell us that it will be substantially amended, but not to give us the amendments, and then to expect us to vote on it tonight.
	I challenge hon. Members who want to vote on this pig in a poke to examine their conscience: how can they vote for something that they have not even seen? That makes a farce of democracy. We have reached Hogarthian structures of government. If the motion is not withdrawn, I urge hon. Members to oppose it.
	The motion will be a test of the democratic conscience of individual Members. It will certainly be a test for my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government. I know him to be an honourable person who struggled for democracy in London over many years. He was one of the key people who re-established strategic democratic governance in our city through the London mayoralty.
	The motion is also a test for the Liberal Democrats—to see how liberal and how democratic they are. If they vote for the motion, their credibility will be undermined. They will have sold the pass. They will be looking for the crumbs under the table at the City corporation freemasons' lodge. I urge them and all hon. Members to vote against the motion if it is not withdrawn.
	With those brief words, I shall sit down.

Edward Davey: I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members enjoyed the speech made by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). We have heard some of it before, but it was none the less welcome.

John McDonnell: Would the hon. Gentleman like to identify those parts of my speech that he had heard before and those that he had not? I do not think that he has heard my speech before.

Edward Davey: I shall not go down that road, as I am sure that I should soon be brought to order. People who study our proceedings can read the hon. Gentleman's speeches for themselves.
	I agree with some of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, as I pointed out during some of the debates on this measure in the last Parliament. I and my colleagues also voted for many of the amendments that he tabled to improve the Bill.
	However, I disagree with the thrust of the hon. Gentleman's argument today: that this Parliament should not be allowed to debate the measure. It does not seem to be a logical sequitur that, because the Bill is inadequate, the House should not debate it. We are often asked to debate inadequate Bills, many of which are introduced by his right hon. and hon. Friends. It is the job of this place to improve legislation.

Jeremy Corbyn: Is it not a parliamentary maxim that one Parliament cannot legislate for another? Public Bills cannot be transferred from one Parliament to another. Private Members' Bills cannot be transferred from one Parliament to another—indeed, from one Session to another. Why on earth should private Bills—in this case, promoted on behalf of the City corporation—be allowed not merely to pass from Session to Session, but from Parliament to Parliament? If we are all still Members in four years, I would not be surprised to find us discussing a motion for the Bill to carry over into the next Parliament.

Edward Davey: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but I think that he misunderstands the parliamentary procedure under which we are debating the motion. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington agreed that this revival process has been used before to continue debate. Surely, the hon. Gentleman wants to debate the subject of democracy in our capital city.

John McDonnell: My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) was making the point that when other Bills are transferred they start afresh.

Jeremy Corbyn: They are newly introduced.

John McDonnell: Indeed. Our objection to the whole carry-over procedure in this motion is that the Bill will not start afresh. It will not go to a Select Committee where representations or petitions can be considered. The motion is certainly offensive because new amendments will substantially alter the measure. The Bill should start afresh.

Edward Davey: I am happy to deal with that second point in due course, but it is my understanding that private business is often revived using this procedure. It is not a new thing for the House; it has happened over the years.

Jeremy Corbyn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Davey: No; I will not give way on that, because I want to deal with the second point raised by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, which he laboured at great length. He said that we had been promised amendments by the promoters, which in his view, would completely change the nature of the Bill, which therefore should not be revived.
	I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, because the principle underlying the Bill is that the promoters wish to change the franchise for votes for the City corporation. It is the House's job to decide whether the direction in which they want to change the franchise is correct. Therefore, if the underlying principle is about the franchise, it seems quite sensible that the Bill should be carried over so that we may continue that debate.
	Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I am pleased that the corporation has suggested that it will table amendments because, like him in the previous Parliament I disagreed with the Bill that the City corporation put before the House because—

Rudi Vis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Davey: I shall give way when I have finished the point.
	I disagreed with the Bill that the City corporation had produced in the previous Parliament because it was unsatisfactory.

John McDonnell: rose—

Edward Davey: Will the hon. Gentleman rest in his seat for just a second?
	That is why I and my colleagues supported many of the amendments proposed by the hon. Gentleman. Like him, I wish to see the amendments that are mentioned in the statement before us, but unlike him, I am prepared to vote for the motion tonight so that we may see and debate them.

John Cryer: rose—

Edward Davey: I will allow the intervention in a second, but I want to make this point. It is very important that we change the current franchise in the City. I find it as unacceptable as does the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington. That is why I wish to see those amendments. I should have thought, given the hon. Gentleman's background, that he would want employees to be enfranchised within the new system.

John McDonnell: rose—

Rudi Vis: rose—

Edward Davey: I give way to the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Dr. Vis).

Rudi Vis: I thought that the hon. Gentleman said that he was pleased that the amendments were there, but that must imply that he has seen them; he also gives the impression that he has not seen them. How can he be pleased about not having seen the amendments about which he is pleased?

Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman needs to listen more carefully. I said that I had been told, as had others, having read the statement before us, that there were proposals to table amendments. I wish to see those amendments, because we are told that they are moving in a direction for which I and Labour Back Benchers argued in the previous Parliament.

John Cryer: Why cannot we see the amendments now? What is preventing those amendments from being tabled now so that we can see them?

Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. I wish that the promoters had put the amendments before us for the debate. However, the question before us is whether we should vote for the motion, and if he is arguing that we should not vote for it just because we have not seen the amendments, I am afraid that that is a non sequitur, and therefore I cannot agree with the logic of his position because that logic is not very good.

John McDonnell: This is bourgeois liberal sophistry, but let us go through it. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I have seen an amendment, and it is the same as the one that was offered last year. It does not give the vote to employees. It simply says that if a company has a specific rateable value it must, according to a formula, employ a certain number of employees and therefore it may have that number of votes per business. He knows as well as I do that if we allow the motion to pass tonight, the Government will steamroller the Bill through, and that the amendment is no more than a tawdry fig leaf. I ask him to get real.

Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman is making a number of assertions, most of which are highly contentious. After an hour-long speech, he has just told us the news that he has seen the amendments and can assure us what they are. That is news to me. I know of no publicly available amendments. If he has them in his possession, it is a shame that he did not bother to circulate them to other hon. Members. He has done the House a disservice.

John McDonnell: I referred to the amendments in my speech. They are the same as those on offer last November and were made widely known by the City of London corporation. Let us ask the Bill's sponsor to produce them now so that the hon. Gentleman can judge them tonight. I believe that, with those amendments, we are talking about a new Bill. The hon. Gentleman should ask the sponsor.

Edward Davey: I am more than happy to see any amendments that the promoter wishes to put forward.
	In the last Parliament, we had some good debates to try to make the City corporation more democratic. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends would want to move in that direction. I am worried about some of his arguments. He called me bourgeois in his pejorative manner, which shows where he is coming from in this argument.
	Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I do not find in my dealings with the City and my knowledge of its undertakings in the capital that it is always nefarious. The City corporation does some good works. It should be made more democratic and that would make those good works far more legitimate in my eyes and those of many other people. We do ourselves a disservice and we do not benefit the arguments for democracy when we resort to the approach and attitude demonstrated by the hon. Gentleman.

Jeremy Corbyn: The hon. Gentleman is raising an unbelievable non sequitur. There is City of London housing in my constituency and Hampstead heath is nearby, which is extremely well run by the City. That is not the issue; it is that during the whole of the last Parliament the Bill received insufficient support to get it through. He says that he will vote for the carry-over motion because he wants more democracy in the City of London. Clearly, the Bill does not enjoy much support in the House. Is he in favour of such a motion for any Government Bill that does not successfully complete its passage within a Session? If he is serious about democracy in the City of London, he will oppose this Bill completely and produce his own to restore real democracy on the basis of one person, one vote.

Edward Davey: I am glad that Labour Members are now learning that democracy and one member, one vote are important. So often the Labour party has not adopted those principles when running its own organisation and I understand that it does not operate that rule for many aspects of its policy. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman and some of his hon. Friends are so hostile to our wanting to improve the governance of the City. I think that rather odd.

Kelvin Hopkins: rose—

Edward Davey: I have given way quite enough.
	I want to see the amendments because progress appears to have been made. I should have thought the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, rather than pooh- poohing and opposing the motion tonight, should be crowing. He may well have secured progress by blocking—

John McDonnell: If the proposal was to allocate votes on the basis of employees registered and entitled to a democratic vote, the City of London corporation would have supported the amendments that we proposed for an electoral college for employees. It did not. I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman can be that gullible. This is just an excuse for swinging the Liberal Democrats behind the City corporation. God knows what deal the Liberal Democrats have done elsewhere. I do not know. The amendment does not allow employees—workers—the right to vote. It is a fig leaf.

Edward Davey: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not have faith in his ability to persuade other hon. Members of that fact during our debate. He is using tactics that go against the whole nature of this place. The point of this House, as I think that you will agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, is to enable us to debate the matter rather than simply to use blocking measures to prevent debate and to prevent Opposition Members from voting for some of the amendments that the hon. Gentleman proposed in the last Parliament.

Kelvin Hopkins: A moment ago, the hon. Gentleman said that the City of London corporation was not always nefarious—in other words, it is sometimes benign. That may or may not be the case, and I am happy to accept that it can be benign, but is he suggesting that whether an organisation is benign or nefarious justifies its being less democratic? Should I tell the electorate that I do not have to stand for election because I am benign? I believe in democracy, whatever the nature of the institution.

Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman needs to pay more attention when listening to speeches. I was making a point not about the nature of democracy, on which there is much shared ground on both sides of the House, but about the fact that there is a presumption in some hon. Members' remarks that the City corporation is uniquely nefarious, and I do not think that that holds water. If the House agrees to the motion, I hope to argue for greater democracy in the City corporation in later debates. I want the Bill, as considered by the previous Parliament, to be substantially amended. I want hon. Members to be able to argue about the nature of a business vote.

John McDonnell: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Davey: In a second. I want us to be able to debate whether the City is unique, so that we can tie down such issues. That is important because the City corporation is so important.

John McDonnell: Let me get something clear and on the record. Is the hon. Gentleman saying on behalf of his party that he will commit the Liberal Democrats to voting for an amendment that will support the right of workers to vote in City corporation elections?

Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that we voted in favour of such an amendment in the previous Parliament. Did we not reach that amendment?

John McDonnell: We reached it, but the Liberal Democrats were split on it.

Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman says that my party was split, but that is news to me. I certainly voted in favour of almost all the amendments that he tabled. Before he says that my party is split, he should consider the Labour party because it is split in many ways.

John McDonnell: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Davey: No, I wish to bring my remarks to a close.

John McDonnell: I want an assurance that he will persuade his colleagues.

Edward Davey: I will talk to my colleagues, but the Liberal Democrats do not whip private business—that procedure is shared across the House. My hon. Friends are responsible for the way in which they vote on private business, and I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would know that.

John McDonnell: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Davey: No, I shall bring my remarks to a close now. We have had an interesting exchange, and I am delighted to have stated the Liberal Democrat position in public.

John McDonnell: We have flushed it out.

Edward Davey: There is nothing to flush out; we have been open and transparent throughout. We are in favour of greater democracy and reforming the City corporation, and other hon. Members should agree.

Bill Etherington: I want to express my appreciation to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak in this debate. I had expected rather more hon. Members to be present, because this is an important issue. Hon. Members may well wonder why a person from the north-east is concerning himself with a matter that apparently relates only to the capital. The fact is that nothing could be further from the truth. The Bill concerns everyone throughout the United Kingdom because it is about the very democracy that we say we hold so dear.
	The Liberal Democrat spokesman said that he had heard certain things before. He certainly will not have heard anything that I have said before because he was not present when I said it, and in any case, there will be some variation. These debates are like a bad dream that keeps turning up; we do not seem to make an awful lot of progress. I am trying to speak to the motion as narrowly as I can, but I have to try to explain why I oppose the carry-over motion. All that I want to say subsequently will be based on that, even if I seem to deviate—in any case, I am sure that you will put me right if I stray too far, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	I feel a certain bemusement. I have always held Peter Brooke—now Lord Brooke—in high regard. He is a fine democrat and a man of great courtesy. It amazed me that a man of his background should bring forward such a fundamentally undemocratic—indeed, anti-democratic—Bill. I shall extend the same courtesy to the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young). Again, I hold him in high regard as a democrat, although there are many of his opinions with which I do not agree.
	My right hon. Friend the Minister did not give a very convincing performance when we debated the matter last time. I hope that he will do better today, but if he supports the Bill, as I am sure that he will, he is in the same position as the promoters, and it is difficult to speak convincingly when putting forward such a rotten proposal.
	We have spent more than an hour talking about reform and improvement. To draw an analogy, some years ago we talked about reforming and improving the poll tax. We must recognise that some things are so fundamentally flawed and rotten that the only thing to do is to eliminate, not reform, them. That is what we want to do with the Bill.
	This Chamber is held in high esteem throughout the world as the mother of democratic Parliaments. For people to argue about amending something that is so fundamentally wrong is offensive. I also find it offensive that we are wasting three hours of valuable parliamentary time talking about this rubbish when there are so many important things to discuss. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned the abolition of hunting with dogs. Most of my constituents would be much more interested in making progress on that.
	I have to be critical of the Government, because they set the parliamentary timetable. I should like to see them show the same concern if, by some fluke, someone introduced a private Member's Bill that put the City of London in the same category as the rest of the United Kingdom, where every resident in a constituency has one vote and all votes are worth the same.
	The Bill is about the property vote, which I thought had been eliminated when I was a child, which was quite a long time ago. I was amazed when I came down here to find just how the City of London corporation operated. I had seen all the bumf about how wonderful it was. I am not criticising the City or the corporation. Whether there is sleaze involved, I do not know. I am still not decided on that one. That is not the issue—the issue is that it is wrong that business and property should interfere with what we regard as the proper democratic process.
	Under a property vote system, I would be worth four votes. I have a house in the City of Durham constituency, an office in the Sunderland, North constituency, an office in Westminster and another house in the Southwark, North and Bermondsey constituency. I do not think that I am worth four votes. I am worth one, the same as everyone else.
	When we talk about carrying over, there seems to be an element of chicanery involved. My hon. Friends the Members for Hayes and Harlington and for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) are such skilled interventionists—I almost said obstructionists—that I thought myself fortunate to be able to speak before 7 o'clock, and I do not want to push my luck too far. However, we are spending far too much time talking about intricate details. I raised the matter with my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington earlier in the debate. I have had one piece of correspondence from the corporation of London, and I thought that it was insulting. It tried to persuade me that the property vote would be moved away from the concept of the square yardage of the floor area of the building and the system made more democratic by basing it on the number of people working there instead. I thought, "Who are these people trying to kid?" As my colleagues have pointed out, those amendments do not give us a mandate to carry over the Bill.
	I have heard no proposal that will enhance democracy. I hope that the Minister is listening carefully. He is certainly writing away assiduously. I feel ashamed that my party, a good democratic organisation, and my Government are giving such garbage a fair wind. I find that not only offensive and embarrassing but incomprehensible.

Mark Field: My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) has already alluded to the somewhat tortuous circumstances of this debate. I am most grateful for his support in this matter, which is hardly an everyday procedural occurrence even for a seasoned Member, let alone a new one such as me.
	I echo the tribute paid by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) to my predecessor, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, a Member of the House for 24 years who, as the Member for Cities of London and Westminster in the previous Parliament, so skilfully sponsored the Bill.
	The scope of the debate is confined, although I note that this fact alone did not prevent the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington from speaking for over an hour. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire has dealt with a number of the issues, and I should like to take the opportunity to make some short points from a constituency standpoint that reinforce the case made so powerfully by my right hon. Friend.
	Much has been said in earlier debates on the Bill about what are alleged to be its potentially damaging effects on the resident voice of the common council, and hon. Members have alluded to those this evening. In fact, the Bill will restore the resident-business balance on the common council to its 1900 position. In addition, the wards that are primarily residential in character will remain so under the new proposals. From the residents' viewpoint, however, perhaps the most crucial factor supporting the revival of the Bill is that it will ensure that the City of London is not reduced to a local government area in which the civic administration of the world's leading international financial centre rests on 5,500 voters who happen to live there.

Jeremy Corbyn: When the hon. Gentleman was seeking election to the House last summer, did he discuss with the resident population of the City of London the fact that their influence on local government will be diminished by the exaggeration of the business vote, and point out that in trying to influence the running of their services they will be completely outvoted by corporate interests? Did he compare the position with that in the neighbouring borough of Islington, which I have the honour to represent, where businesses have no vote? The only people who have a vote in Islington are those who are ordinarily resident in the borough, and I have never heard of anybody asking for a business vote to be introduced there.

Mark Field: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman brought that up. As he well knows, a chunk of the residential population of the City of London, the Golden Lane estate, was transferred to the City from the borough of Islington in 1994. When I was canvassing in Golden Lane, it was evident to me that, almost universally, the residents, many of whom have lived there for many years and had therefore been under the auspices of the much-loved borough of Islington, are much happier being governed by the corporation. I did not go into great detail about the massive change to the franchise, although they are well aware that there will be changes to the voting arrangements if the Bill is passed. However, it was clear to me that in general the residential population of the City do not feel that they are to be disfranchised. Indeed, the opposite is true. They are glad of the opportunity to be residents of the City of London, rather than of the borough of Islington.

John McDonnell: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the debate. I am sure that we will all grow to know him well during our deliberations on this matter. The key point is that his constituents were previously able to petition against the Bill as part of the process. Did he inform them that it would be changed by the amendment that the sponsor is suggesting? Was he aware of that amendment? If so, did he put it before the electorate to enable them to petition or at least to communicate with him on it? Has he seen the amendment? If so, can he let us have a copy? Can he let the Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesmen have a copy now that they have formed a partnership? That would allow us to discuss it.

Mark Field: I have not seen the amendment. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that only a small proportion of the residential population of my constituency is in the City of London—about 5,500 out of 73,000. As such, the reform was not a major part of my election campaign in May and June. That said, when I met residents of the Barbican, Petticoat square and more generally, it was an issue, although I did not go into precise details. By the same token, I am sure the hon. Gentleman will understand that I was not at that juncture in a position to put to paper concerns or promises about events that might happen.

John McDonnell: When the hon. Gentleman is made aware of the amendment's contents, will he consult his constituents who live within the City corporation boundaries? Does he not think it appropriate to give them the right to petition the House on the basis of that amendment?

Mark Field: In fairness, there has been much consultation in recent years. It is evident to me that the City corporation has done its best to consult residents and ensure that they are aware that change is under way. If the motion to revive is accepted, I undertake to write to all City of London residents to outline the nature of our debate. I will do that in tandem with other issues because the health service and other public services are also important to my constituents.

Jeremy Corbyn: That is excellent news. In the hon. Gentleman's letter to the residents of the City of London, will he enclose a copy of the excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) so that, instead of thinking that the Bill is tinkering around with administrative arrangements, they are fully apprised of the arguments for democracy? Will he tell them that the prize for defeating the Bill is to gain control of their local government? [Interruption.] I am sure that if my hon. Friend cannot visit all the residents personally, he will be happy to send them a video of his speech, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) suggests.

Mark Field: I am sure that the sheer weight of the hour-long speech by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington will cause the Fees Office to blanch at the cost of sending it out.
	The City is the world's leading financial centre. The idea that its civic administration should rest on the 5,500 voters who live there is not appropriate. Such an eventuality would be logically unsustainable and in due course bring forward calls for the abolition of the City corporation. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington might welcome that, but it would be contrary to the wishes of my constituents in the City of London.
	On the electorate, one need look no further than the past two boundary commission inquiries. As London Members know, we are going through that rigmarole again. It is clear that the overwhelming majority of City of London residents are keen to remain in the City corporation, with its distinct powers and characteristics. Representatives of the City branch of the constituency Labour party made that point when they gave evidence to the Select Committee on the Bill. Hon. Members will want to take account of the view of City residents when they decide on their attitude to the motion.
	As hon. Members would expect me to report, the case for reviving the Bill is supported by the financial sector of the City of London. The most recent survey was conducted in October 2000 and it consulted 150 senior City executives. It showed 91 per cent. support for the Government's decision not to abolish the City corporation and 88 per cent. support for the proposed extension of the franchise.

Rudi Vis: The hon. Gentleman said that he has discussed the proposals with residents. What consultation has taken place with the workers in the City? Can he give us any information on that?

Mark Field: I must inform the hon. Gentleman that I have not been involved in that, not least because many of those workers are not my constituents. It would be wrong for me to make any representations to them, and I am not aware of the precise representations that the City corporation has made. I shall be interested to know whether his constituents made any representations in that regard.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I understand the temptation to range widely, but it would certainly be a comfort to the Chair if the motion could be mentioned a little more frequently.

Mark Field: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington argues that we have had insufficient opportunity to scrutinise the Bill over the past four years. I am not convinced, however, that a new Committee would make a great deal of difference. We have already had plenty of consultation over the years with all imaginable relevant parties.

John McDonnell: The sponsor of the Bill is offering us either something that is completely ineffectual or a substantial vista of industrial democracy opening up in the City. That is a key issue on which we should consult. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) has accepted that he has not consulted any members of the work force in the City corporation who will be directly affected by the Bill. However, if the wonderful vista of a soviet in the City is to be established, surely they must be consulted.

Mark Field: My reply to the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Dr. Vis) was that it was not my place as the Member of Parliament for Cities of London and Westminster to consult other hon. Members' constituents. I am sure that he accepts that. The organisation of the business franchise has been subject to extensive consultation with City businesses and employees, and details of the proposals have been circulated by the corporation's publication, which comes out on a monthly or bi-monthly basis and has a circulation of 65,000.

Rudi Vis: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his replies to me and to my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). I would object to the hon. Gentleman visiting Finchley unless he told me in advance. However, he can come if he lets me know.
	The people to whom he referred will receive a vote, but I do not want him to talk to people in Finchley or other constituencies. I want him to consult the people in the workplaces in the City and ask them, while they are at work, whether they want a vote. That is my point, and it is the one that he is avoiding.

Mark Field: I am not avoiding anything.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. When the hon. Gentleman replies, will he relate his remarks to the motion?

Mark Field: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	I endorse the comments of the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), who said that we should accept the motion so that we will be able to examine any amendments that might lead to the extension of democracy. Indeed, the promoters are offering amendments that deserve serious consideration, and such consideration can take place only if the Bill is revived. On that basis, I hope that the House will support the revival motion.

Nick Raynsford: Hon. Members will recall that Government representatives, myself included, have spoken in previous debates concerning this Bill. I therefore intend not to speak at length but merely to take a few moments to confirm why the Government believe that it is right for the Bill to have the opportunity to progress.
	The Bill contains a number of provisions relating to the existing business franchise about which it is difficult, even for the Bill's main opponents, to complain. I refer specifically to measures designed to curb certain practices that are clearly unsatisfactory. For example, an individual may currently be entitled to a business vote if he or she is an owner or tenant of property in the City with a rateable value of just £10.

John McDonnell: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Nick Raynsford: If my hon. Friend will bear with me for a moment, I should like to make a little progress. I have only just started my speech but will give way to him in a moment.
	I was making the point that current provision allows individual owners or tenants of property with a rateable value of only £10 to have a vote even if they do not maintain a physical presence in the City. The Bill would tighten the definition of occupation to require physical presence on the premises and increase the rateable value threshold needed to qualify for a business vote to £200. It is also currently possible for an individual to be entitled to more than one vote in local elections in the City. The Bill would specifically prevent that. If the Bill is not revived, those anomalies will continue while we wait for another opportunity to end them.
	I am surprised that my hon. Friends—I understand their strength of feeling—should, in effect, be advocating the retention of plural voting.

Bill Etherington: I hope that my right hon. Friend is not suggesting that I advocated plural voting, because I spoke against that. I would be surprised if he were to quote me as having such a view. I am interested in the concept of—it is hard to think of the right term; perhaps this is the word to use—proportionality. Two categories come to mind when thinking about business premises and those present. What, for example, would be the position of a self-employed window cleaner who works in the vicinity? What would be the voting arrangements for a football ground, rugby pitch or other sporting facility in the area? Would we have to find out how many people attended over the season and average out that number? I am not trying to be clever, but I feel that I must exaggerate in order to show how ridiculous the concept is.

Nick Raynsford: My hon. Friend made a fair point in his speech about his occupying a number of premises and how he would regard it as wrong for him to have more than one vote. Although I accept entirely that it is not his intention to support plural voting, the effect of his succeeding in blocking the Bill's revival would be to allow the continuation of plural voting. Although I understand the sincerity of his argument, he must recognise that we are dealing with the reality, which is in many ways profoundly unsatisfactory. The Bill seeks to remedy some of those defects. Either he wishes to remedy those defects or not. If he is arguing against the revival of the Bill, he is in effect allowing such abuses to continue.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Nick Raynsford: On my hon. Friend's specific question, which I shall seek to answer before giving way to some of my other hon. Friends, the definitions as proposed for the qualification for a business vote in the City are quite detailed—I do not intend to go into them as that would be contrary to the purpose of this debate—but would depend entirely on whether the business has premises in the City and the occupiers were working from those premises. Those are reasonably sensible criteria. The question is whether one accepts the premise—I know that my hon. Friend and others do not; I shall come to the matter in a moment—that there should in the unique circumstances of the City of London be a franchise related to residence not just by residential occupiers but by business occupiers.

John McDonnell: Will my right hon. Friend cut to the quick? Has he seen the invisible amendment up the sleeve of the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young), who is sponsoring the Bill? Has he been consulted on it? Does he know whether No. 10 has had any communication with the City corporation on the amendment? Has there been any correspondence on the matter? If he has seen the amendment, what is his attitude to it? Are the Government supporting it? If he has not seen it, at what stage does he think that it will be produced?

Nick Raynsford: I have not seen the amendment and would not expect to see it because we are considering a revival motion for a Bill that is not drafted in the way that the City corporation indicates it would like it to be drafted. The amendment, as I understand it, responds to specific issues raised in the House in the last Parliament and addressed criticisms made by my hon. Friend, among others. It is slightly bizarre of him to criticise amendments that seek to effect reforms and improvements that he himself advocated in the last Parliament.

John McDonnell: rose—

Nick Raynsford: I shall give way once more. However, I wish to make progress as the House has been at this rather a long time.

John McDonnell: I do not know whether my right hon. Friend heard what he just said. He said that the motion seeks to revive a Bill that is not acceptable to the City corporation; it is about to be amended because it is unacceptable, yet we are being asked to revive it. The only amendment that I have seen is one that was floated 12 months ago, which did not respond in any way to our criticisms. It was a veiled way of bringing back a vote based on rateable value and businesses. I cannot believe that the City corporation has not consulted someone in Government. When our debate has finished, will my right hon. Friend go to No. 10 and ask who has been in dialogue with the City corporation?

Nick Raynsford: I am sorry that my hon. Friend is being obtuse. A simple point is at stake—whether the Bill should be revived and, if so, whether it should be amended in the light of criticisms made during previous considerations. If my hon. Friend believed that the considerable period that the House has spent on the Bill will improve it, I would agree. However, he does not seem to take that view. As everyone knows, he does not like the Bill or the City corporation. He is doing everything possible to avoid any reform or change at all. I understand his position, but—

John McDonnell: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Nick Raynsford: No; I have given way twice to my hon. Friend and I do not intend to do so again. He is opposed to the measure and does not wish it to proceed. A little frank speaking, rather than the pretence of speaking to the amendments, would be a lot better.
	The main contention levelled against the Bill concerns the concept of expanding the business franchise to include the large number of companies in the City. I understand why its opponents, including many of my hon. Friends, find the expansion of a property-based business vote unacceptable. However, the reality is that such a franchise already exists for local elections in the City. It has long been accepted that that is the appropriate franchise for the unique circumstances of the City, which is essentially a business district with a resident population of about only 5,500 people, which would not make it a viable district for local government under any other circumstances. If we accept that in the unique circumstances of the City corporation it is appropriate that local business people should have a say in the election of those who make decisions for their area, it is wholly inappropriate that that right should be available only to unincorporated businesses.
	The Bill would correct a huge imbalance. Sole traders and partnerships between them determine elections to the non-residential wards in the City's local elections, while incorporated businesses and the many people who work in them have no say whatsoever. The Bill includes provisions to determine how many votes are allocated to a company and to whom they are distributed within it.

Bill Etherington: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Nick Raynsford: No, I have taken several interventions, and I intend to make progress.
	The recent statement by the promoters of the Bill indicates their intention to break the link between property and voting rights by replacing the rateable value as the basis for calculating entitlement to vote with a formula based on the number of employees. It is important that Members are aware of the wider reforms, to which the Bill is integral, that the City of London corporation is progressing. The special report of the Committee that considered the Bill welcomed the boundary review volunteered by the promoters and the need to reduce the overall number of elected members in the common council. Both the boundary review and the reduction in elected members are proceeding in line with undertakings from the corporation to ensure that the position of residential voters would not suffer as the result of the introduction of the corporate franchise envisaged in the Bill.
	However, I fear for the completion of those processes should the Bill fail to be revived today. Those members of the corporation who are opposed to modernisation are more likely to gain ground if there is disillusionment at the House's rejection of the reform of the business vote set out in the Bill. I think they would be asking, "Why should we continue to propose reforms if Parliament has rejected the legislation that the measures anticipate?"
	In summary, the Government believe that the revival of the Bill is the right way forward because the measures in the Bill seem reasonable and, in parts, long overdue. Secondly, to kill off the Bill would be a real setback for the process of modernisation of the corporation, and would allow the continuation of entirely unacceptable practices that no hon. Member could possibly wish to see perpetuated. I therefore urge all Members to vote in favour of the Bill's revival.

Question put:—
	The House divided:- Ayes 156, Noes 33.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Ordered,
	That the promoters of the City of London (Ward Elections) Bill which originated in this House in the last Parliament but had not received the Royal Assent may, notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders or practice of this House, proceed with the bill in the present session of Parliament; and the petition for the bill shall be deemed to have been deposited and all Standing Orders applicable to it shall be deemed to have been complied with;
	That the bill shall be presented to the House by deposit in the Private Bill Office no later than the fifth day on which the House sits after this day;
	That a declaration signed by the agent shall be annexed to the bill, stating that it is the same in every respect as the bill presented in this House in the last Parliament;
	That on the next sitting day following presentation, the Clerk in the Private Bill Office shall lay the bill on the Table of the House;
	That in the present session of Parliament the bill shall be deemed to have passed through every stage through which it has passed in the last Parliament, and shall be recorded in the Journal of the House as having passed those stages;
	That no further fees shall be charged to such stages.
	Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Ordered,
	That Mr. Richard Shepherd be added to the Select Committee appointed to join with a Committee of the Lords as the Joint Committee on Human Rights.—[Mr. Pearson.]

TRAVEL CONCESSIONS (ELIGIBILITY) BILL [LORDS]

Ordered,
	That, during proceedings on the Travel Concessions (Eligibility) Bill [Lords], the Standing Committee on the Bill shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it shall meet.—[Mr. Pearson.]

PARLIAMENTARY CONTRIBUTORY PENSION FUND

Ordered,
	That Baron MacGregor of Pulham Market, Mrs. Sylvia Heal and Mr. A. J. Beith be discharged as Managing Trustees of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund and Mr. Peter Lilley, Ms Gisela Stuart and Mr. John Burnett be appointed as Managing Trustees in pursuance of section 1 of the Parliamentary and other Pensions Act 1987.—[Mr. Pearson.]

SEASIDE TOWNS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pearson.]

Geraldine Smith: I am grateful for the opportunity to highlight once again some of the many acute social and economic problems that afflict seaside towns, to look at what action the Government have taken to address them and to consider what further measures need to be taken.
	Having been raised in the seaside town of Morecambe, I witnessed its decline throughout the 1980s from a thriving, prosperous holiday resort to an area of high unemployment and social deprivation. The regeneration of our seaside resorts has therefore long been high on my list of priorities. Following my election to serve as the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale in 1997, a substantial part of my maiden speech to the House was devoted to that subject. Much of what I said about tourism and seaside resorts in general, and about my constituency in particular, has been echoed on many occasions by other hon. Members with similar constituencies. It may be useful to remind the House briefly of some of the points that I raised and use them as a benchmark to assess what progress has been made.
	In 1997, I told the House that following the collapse of the domestic holiday trade in the 1980s, Morecambe was suffering from a wide range of social and economic problems. There was a huge stock of former guesthouses and hotels that had fallen out of holiday use and were being used as substandard houses in multiple occupation. The proliferation of HMOs had attracted a large number of socially disadvantaged and mainly transient people to the town, which had put an enormous strain on public services. High unemployment was endemic in several wards, and deprivation and social exclusion were widespread. Many of the resort's visitor attractions had closed and many others were on the verge of closure. Much of its infrastructure was old, decaying and in need of refurbishment. Access to the resort was poor, hampering efforts to attract new business. Those were the conditions that existed in my constituency, and in seaside resorts throughout the country, in 1997. Unfortunately, many of the problems that resorts faced then are just as acute or worse today.
	In my constituency, squalor and splendour sit side by side. The high density of HMOs remains and continues to attract the socially disadvantaged into the resort. Many wards continue to harbour substantial pockets of social and economic deprivation among the worst in Lancashire. The resort's premier attraction, the Frontierland leisure park, has closed. The Bubbles leisure complex has also closed, and the resort still does not have a theatre. Occasionally, productions are put on at the Festival market hall, which necessitates the stallholders forfeiting their business to accommodate them. Shops in the main Arndale centre and surrounding area continue to become vacant with alarming frequency.
	Access to the resort remains poor, whether by private car or public transport. Rail services are infrequent and, in the main, run only as far as Lancaster, where visitors to the town are required to change and frequently encounter lengthy delays. The ticket office and waiting room on Morecambe station are closed from early afternoon and, in inclement weather, passengers have to huddle under an open-ended shelter on the platform. After the ticket office has closed, no information is available to passengers about late-running or cancelled trains.
	Bus services to the resort are also infrequent and often become entangled in the traffic chaos and congestion that pervade the Lancaster and Morecambe area. Those who travel to the resort by car experience similar difficulties. There is no doubt in my mind that poor access is the biggest single barrier to investment and the regeneration of Morecambe.
	On a brighter note, a proposal to redevelop the Frontierland site as a retail park is being examined. A private developer is also attempting to renovate the Midland hotel, which was once the flagship of Morecambe's tourism industry. If either of those developments comes to fruition, it will give commercial activity in the town a significant boost.
	Of course, the natural beauty of the area remains untarnished. But after decades of decline and underinvestment in its infrastructure, Morecambe—in common with many other seaside resorts—is still only at the stage of preventing further decline, never mind being regenerated.
	Perhaps at this point I should make it clear that I do not lay the blame for the decline in resorts such as Morecambe at the door of the current Government, and neither do I accuse them of negligence or inactivity in advancing measures to remedy the problem. Nothing could be further from the truth: I firmly believe that, since coming to office in 1997, the Government have made enormous strides in getting to grips with the horrendous legacy that they inherited from the Tories.
	Many seaside resorts now have access to funds from which they were previously excluded. My constituency is set to benefit from assisted-area status, as well as from objective 2 and single regeneration funding. The establishment of the resorts taskforce and the publication of the regeneration "Sea Changes" blueprint, which clearly sets out what needs to be done, constitute a major step forward, as does the multi-billion pound commitment to improve the nation's transport infrastructure that was announced in the Government's spending review. That undoubtedly will prove of great benefit to many seaside towns. The cross-departmental approach that the Government have adopted, given many of the problems of social exclusion in our resorts, is also soundly based.
	Although I do not blame the Government for what has transpired in our resorts and commend them for what they have achieved so far, I do not want to give the impression that they can now sit back and contemplate a job well done. As far as I am concerned, they have taken a few small but significant steps down a long road.
	The "Sea Changes" blueprint is only words on paper at the moment, and unless they are converted into action, they are meaningless. I should be interested in any details that my hon. Friend the Minister can offer of how and when the delivery of the huge amount of extra investment required to transform and modernise our resorts will be achieved.
	I firmly believe that regionally based seaside regeneration delivery units need to be established to ensure that a focused, cross-departmental approach is maintained at local level. There is no doubt in my mind that, without such a focus, attempts to regenerate seaside towns will become patchy and over-bureaucratic, and that in general they will fall short of their targets.
	To illustrate what I mean, I shall refer to a couple of things that are happening in the local authority that covers my constituency, namely Lancaster.
	First, there is a long-standing bid to build a link road from the port of Heysham to the M6 motorway. There is almost universal acceptance at all levels of government that such a link is required, but there is a dispute about the routing of the road. I, the city council and the county council favour the western route, which offers the best prospects for economic development of the area. The northern route, preferred by the Government office of the north-west, appears to have a less adverse environmental impact, and accordingly the office has registered objections to the Lancaster local plan.
	My concern is not that the office has objected to the proposed western route but that in doing so it stated that, although the western route would open up more areas for economic development, such developments were not part of the road's strategic objectives.
	I believed that the Government had said that they would build roads for economic reasons and not just to relieve congestion, so I find the thinking of the Government office muddled and misguided. That is compounded when it is considered in conjunction with a bid submitted by Lancaster city council to establish an economic development zone.
	The core of that bid is the industrial development of the Luneside site in Lancaster. The site is landlocked, with only limited access by minor roads. Government officials discovered how poor access was when they had to walk from the centre of Lancaster to inspect the industrial estate. It was just too difficult to reach by minibus, and the officials had to get out and walk there. Despite that, they have examined the EDZ bid and included it among the 10 high-priority schemes. It seems that the Government office is prepared to support the spending of millions of pounds on the development of the site but opposes the building of a road that would make it a viable proposition.
	On Monday, I met Peter Styche who, until recently, was acting director of the Government office of the north-west, and asked him to reconcile those contradictory policies. Not only was he unable to give me a satisfactory answer, he appeared unable to give any answer whatever. Both the building of the motorway link and an EDZ are critical to the regeneration of Morecambe. I would be most grateful for any assistance that the Minister could offer in helping to resolve this matter.
	In my opinion, the foregoing clearly demonstrates the need for a more focused approach to the regeneration of our resorts to ensure that the joined-up cross-departmental thinking that the Government adopt nationally is carried forward and implemented locally.
	That leads me to my final point. Seaside resorts in recent years have suffered from a contraction in the domestic holiday trade similar to that experienced by mining communities as a result of pit closures. It is obvious that seaside resorts will require a similar amount of support and investment to that which the coalfield communities received if they are to be successfully regenerated.
	Serious consideration should be given to the establishment of a seaside regeneration trust, modelled on the coalfields regeneration trust, which will focus on and give impetus to the regeneration of our seaside resorts. I am aware that the Government are currently of the opinion that the economic and social deprivation caused by the decline of seaside resorts is not directly comparable to that suffered by mining communities as a result of pit closures. Indeed, the Minister confirmed that to me in a written response to a parliamentary question earlier this week.
	I have to inform the Minister that I believe that the Government are wrong in their assumption. The collapse of the holiday trade, on which the economics of seaside resorts depended, had an impact on many resorts every bit as sudden and severe as that which occurred in the coalfield communities. The only real difference in circumstances is that when the collapse of the holiday trade occurred, we were saddled with a Conservative Government who were not prepared to do anything about it. Much of the resulting devastation still afflicts seaside resorts today and it will take much more than a pump-priming role by Government to renovate, modernise and improve the infrastructure of seaside resorts and enable them to diversify and rebuild their economies.
	If my hon. Friend the Minister is in any doubt that this is the case, I invite him to visit my constituency at the earliest possible opportunity to see for himself just how much still needs to be done.

Michael Jabez Foster: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I take it that the hon. Gentleman has the agreement of the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) and the Minister to participate in the debate.

Michael Jabez Foster: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) for obtaining this important debate. I am grateful also to the London Members who made it possible for more time to be spared for it.
	What my hon. Friend said about her constituency in the north-west applies equally to my constituency in the south-east. Seaside resorts have special problems and, like her, I brought them to the attention of the House in my maiden speech; both of us have been battering on about it ever since. Much has been done, and I want to acknowledge that the Government have addressed many of the social issues and the symptoms of the deprivation that exists in many of our areas. But we need to acknowledge that seaside towns are unique in this special regard; they have a 180 deg catchment area. The economic success of an area is thus limited by a factor of 50 per cent. compared with areas with a wider catchment. That creates difficulties. Furthermore, our transport systems are frequently inadequate, which makes matters worse. That is certainly the situation in Hastings and, to some extent, Rye.
	The lack of economic activity and low wages over many years has resulted in social problems. Older people have moved to the area. In itself that is a good thing but, sadly, they have a low income—certainly, they did in the past. It was always said that if people had money, they went to Bournemouth; if they did not have quite as much, they went to Hove; if they were a bit hard-up, they went to Eastbourne; but if they ended up in Hastings, they were really poor. I suspect that that is a particular problem in my constituency rather than in Morecambe, but all seaside towns face the problem, or challenge, of an elderly population who are often without economic strength. We see the consequences of that in our seaside towns.
	The Government have successfully addressed the symptoms: for example, the minimum income guarantee is especially successful in helping the aged in my constituency to make ends meet. There is help through programmes such as the education action zones or cash benefits for low-paid families such as the working families tax credit. Like the sure start and neighbourhood renewal schemes, all those social benefits have brought significant changes to my constituents during the past four years.
	However, in a sense, we are improving the social well-being of residents of seaside towns rather than providing the economic gains that are needed before we can make a leap forward. For example, although there have been improvements in my constituency, we remain the 28th poorest town in Britain. When a south-east town, only 60 miles from London, is the 28th poorest town in Britain, we have to ask why, after all that Government aid, we have failed to improve our relative position.
	The answer is simple. To improve the lot of individuals is good and proper and we are grateful for it, but we need to improve economic benefits through the infrastructure to attract private-sector investment. In my constituency, a great opportunity was lost when the Government decided not to build a bypass, which would have brought wider benefits—not only by creating confidence among the business community but by safeguarding our seafront. The town is unique in Britain because its main trunk road trundles along the seafront, past its hotel, going through seven conservation areas. However, I pass on—the decision has been made so there is little purpose in bemoaning its effects.
	The balance in the Government's consideration was wrong: the environmental argument was so strong that the economic argument was set aside. That is always a problem in seaside areas, because they are beautiful places. They are usually surrounded by a wonderful hinterland—as they are in my hon. Friend's constituency and mine. That is great and we appreciate it, but we have to balance the environmental cost with the economic gain. I hope that no other constituency will suffer as Hastings and Rye did from a decision that appeared perverse. None the less, we move on.
	Transport is essential. Not only do we need roads for our seaside towns, we need public transport so that we can get to them. We need transport so that people can go to work elsewhere if there are no local jobs. I work in this place, but it takes me two hours to get here on the train every day—only 60 miles. That is probably a combination of Railtrack, Connex and a lack of investment over many, many years.
	People need to be able to visit our seaside towns. If we do not have proper rail services, they cannot do so. I emphasise the infrastructure argument advanced by my hon. Friend. Hastings is not unique in its transport infrastructure difficulties; many seaside towns suffer from the same problems of inaccessibility. That is an important factor.
	We also, in Hastings and Rye in particular, suffer from many other deficiencies, such as the lack of a higher education institute, which results in a work force with low skills. A package of measures is required. Seaside towns are not unique, but they are special in that many of them suffer from the same basket of disadvantage.
	I do not want us to so improve the social infrastructure in seaside towns—especially Hastings and Rye—that we become a university for misfits. I do not mean that unkindly, but there is a risk that that could happen. We have plenty of cheap accommodation. As we improve the lot of our residents through our social programmes, those people improve. That is of course what it is all about, but there is no economic benefit because there are no jobs for our residents, so they move on. The space becomes available and more people move in with social problems similar to those that we have solved for other people.
	That cycle is not unique to Hastings and Rye. It happens in many towns, including Brighton, and it may well happen in Morecambe. Although we want to benefit those with disadvantage, we want our community to gain from the investment in the individuals whom we so aid.
	In conclusion, I am looking for a Minister-level taskforce for seaside towns. The needs of seaside towns are difficult, because they are numerous but they are perhaps not complex, because we know what they are. I am not criticising the Government, who have done much already, but if we could persuade them to take seaside towns even more seriously and get together a ministerial taskforce to focus on their specific needs, that would be a means by which Government could really demonstrate joined-up thinking and government and aid us all to a better life.

Kim Howells: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) on instigating the debate. She has done her constituents a great service, as she certainly has since she was elected to this place. In highlighting the special difficulties that we find in coastal resorts and seaside resorts, she reminds us all of how important those towns are. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) is in the Chamber; I am sure that he is present because he is very interested in the debate, and many others could draw illustrations similar to those drawn by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale in highlighting the special difficulties of seaside resorts.
	I was slightly worried that my hon. Friend, in comparing those resorts with coalfield communities, was in danger of talking down the great potential of seaside towns. Many seaside towns, including Morecambe, are experiencing great difficulties at the moment, but they still have something that the coalfields certainly do not have in the aftermath of colliery closures: the sea and beautiful scenery. Their raison d'être was to provide a holiday for people.

Geraldine Smith: Yes, we have the sea, the views and natural beauty, but we need attractions. We need indoor attractions that families can use. We need decent infrastructure. We need decent road and rail links to get people to seaside resorts. Most seaside resorts are pretty isolated; they have the sea on one side and access to them is poor. Such improvements are essential to ensure that we attract tourists. After all, attracting tourists is our core industry, just as mining was the coalfield communities' core industry.

Kim Howells: My hon. Friend took the words out of my mouth. We should also remember that in 1999, about 100 recognised seaside resorts generated £6 billion of income, which is well over 15 per cent. of the total income generated by tourism in this country—we do not have the exact figures yet as the tourism industry is a little slow in producing them, which is a big problem. The resorts accounted for 2.1 million domestic holidays, for more than 40 per cent. of all holiday trips and nights away and for about 200 million domestic day trips. Those figures exclude visits by overseas visitors.
	The resorts are still phenomenally important generators of income and employment. My hon. Friend is right to say that they could do even more. She was also right to point to the need for inter-departmental action on the issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Foster) also pointed that out when he talked of the problem with the bypass decision. It was an important decision and it will have a long-term effect on the town.
	I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale. I took my family to north Devon this year. If I climb the mountain above my house in Pontypridd I can see the shoulder of land above Ilfracombe, but when I set off to drive to 10 miles south of that shoulder of land on a Saturday morning in the middle of August it took me four and a half hours—breaking the law, I could probably have driven to Italy in that time. It was unbelievable. She is right to highlight the great problem caused by the lack of good communications and the problem of getting to the resorts. We should be able to get to them more easily and that is one of the great tasks that we face.
	A range of sources of funding already exist as my hon. Friend knows and they are being tapped by a number of resorts. It is important that they continue to do so and that they can identify those sources of funding. The prime source has been the single regeneration budget. I am told that there have been 35 successful bids by coastal areas worth £172 million—28 per cent. of the total SRB round 6 awards. It is important for resorts to understand that if they can come up with imaginative and coherent proposals, the money is there to be used.

Andrew Turner: I thank the Minister for giving way and the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) for initiating this debate. The single regeneration budget is important. Although it applies in Ryde in my constituency and has already applied to Cowes, we are looking forward to its roll-out to other coastal towns, such as Sandown and Ventnor, which suffer particularly.

Kim Howells: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that I was subjected, in a very pleasant way, to a considerable amount of information about the help needed on the island at the Isle of Wight stand at the Earl's Court travel show yesterday. However, this is my hon. Friend's debate and I must answer some of her questions.
	I assure my hon. Friend that at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport we are concerned that the problems that she has highlighted are tackled, not merely by our Department but by all the other Departments. We are determined that the fall in visitor numbers that she so eloquently described shall be reversed. For far too many families, the word holiday is equated with a flight to Spain or some other country. The Department and I must convince people that we have great things to offer them in this country.
	Morecambe will finally be returned to its former glory—and more—when we get the visitors back there, so all the schemes and projects that my hon. Friend highlighted need to come to fruition. That is not easy; there are many competing claims. As she and my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye rightly said, seaside towns and resorts have special problems and their claims are many. Some of the poorest urban centres that I have visited are in seaside towns. I understand that, until recently, the poorest ward in the United Kingdom was in Plymouth, and there are many other poor wards in coastal towns.
	The way out of this dilemma is to try to reverse the habit that has grown up in this country of assuming that people have to go abroad to have a real holiday, so the quality of the product must be improved in our country. We are trying to do that; we are absolutely determined to push up standards. There are some great hotels, bed and breakfasts and attractions in this country, but we have a far too lengthy tale of under-performers, and great improvements have to be made.
	If we are to revive the fortunes of many of our seaside towns, we must ensure that the people who travel to them—whether for a day trip, a weekend stay, a short break or a fortnight's holiday—want to go back there afterwards. That is why I fully concur with my hon. Friend in saying that the problems that she and my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye have highlighted, which almost involve the ghettoisation of poverty and disadvantage, have to be tackled at the root, and we must work with other Departments to do that.
	I hope very much that my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale continues to alert the House to those problems, as she has done this evening. I also hope that she continues to alert not only the Department that most obviously has responsibility for tourism in this country—the DCMS—but all the other Departments that deal with social inclusion and regeneration.
	We have to consider planning very carefully, as well as the way in which the social security system works. Through the regional development agencies, the problem of investment in those areas must be tackled in a much more co-ordinated way. As my hon. Friend says, there can be no more urgent need for co-ordination than that for public and private transport links, which are very important.
	Nevertheless, I hope that my hon. Friend will not leave the Chamber feeling gloomy about the prospects. The Government have put in place a lot of money, and we are very much aware of the difficulties that we face in trying to help communities such as hers. I can tell her that the coalfields faced an extraordinarily bleak prospect. A very short distance from the area where I live in south Wales, thousands of well-paid jobs, which propped up our communities, were lost in a matter of months, but, 10 years on, many of those communities are thriving. We have reinvented ourselves; we have got new industries. That has taken real co-ordination and a determination to win, and it has involved a lot of lobbying of respective Governments. Of course, those responsible have done us a great service. We benefited from the formation of the Welsh Development Agency, and this Government have introduced the RDAs, which are still in the process of inventing themselves.
	The RDAs have no more important task than trying to ensure that the criticisms that my hon. Friend makes are addressed and that there is a proper and coherent response, so that we can lift the blight that hangs over towns such as Morecambe and use their great potential not only to develop new tourism industries, but to make them lovely places to live, because that is such an important variable in that economic equation. If we do that, we all benefit—the British tourism industry benefits and Morecambe benefits—and we start to create centres of excellence, which can be a model for many towns throughout the country.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to Seven o'clock.